ethics by no other name

mtadros

When he was young, her husband, she said, who loves to tell the story of how it all began for him,  lied to newspapers and told them he wrote for other newspapers  and they never checked. Eventually because he was good, he was hired by one and is now a happily ever after journalist.

This was the message at a commencement speech of a reputable university.  Because it is a commencement speech, many believed students were not really paying attention in their celebratory mode.  The problem, however, is that this particular speaker was much closer to their age and was an ‘artist’ who was recognized by quite a few of them. Read More …

ncmr2011: wikileaks panel

mtadros

At National conference for media reform – Boston April 8th
Panel: Wikileaks, Journalism and Modern-Day Muckraking

Glenn Greenwald: talking about how some journalists were actually livid and furious over release of cables. A journalist was outraged that the gov did not do a better job of ‘concealing’ this info from him.  I did lots of shows on Wikileaks and in every single show the journalist and the opposing person were saying the same thing. The idea that a journalist thought exactly as the powers that be is surprising to me. Wikileaks discloses the deceitful things that happen in our names and I am surprised that journalists were angry about the disclosure and not about what the powers that be are doing. Read More …

ncmr2011: wikileaks panel

mtadros

At National Conference for Media Reform – Boston 2011
Panel: Wikileaks, Journalism and Modern-Day Muckraking

Emily Bell: how do we equip future generations of journalists. The role of professional journalists has been replaced by people and algorithms but journalists are not obsolete. Wikileaks caught journalists by surprise: to my students I asked what would you do if this fell on your desk? Answer should be we should just publish it. We need to be tech-literate and we don’t have free press. The ‘free press’ is owned by Twitter, FB and google and they are also debated. Ppl have poor understanding of how technology can be used so it means that we have to shift how journalism is done. We have to enable connection of expertise and how to maintain professionalism on a network that you do not necessarily own or have control over.  We need to report on what the impact of such stories are and we have not yet seen how all this plays out in terms of free press. We therefore need to encourage journalists to close the feedback loop with follow-up reporting on how their stories affect change.

ncmr2011: wikileaks panel

mtadros

At National Conference for Media Reform – Boston 2011
Panel: Wikileaks, Journalism and Modern-Day Muckraking

Christopher Warren: If Wikileaks is considered a source rather than a media outlet, it is left unprotected by journalism rights. Dangerous repercussions. If we allow Assange to be tried, it is a threat to every individual who practices journalism or even doesn’t practice it to criticize anything. Journalism is changing fundamentally in the world. There is a continued fear in US media after 9/11.   But until the media realizes that they need to inform the public and be impartial then media will not be doing its job. What does our response to wikileaks say about us as journalists and our sense of the craft? Weaknesses of American journalism been shown by response to WikiLeaks.