Ethics AdviceLine

Hurricane coverage debated: Meteorologists dislike the exclusive use of categories in defining the threats of hurricanes, reports Jed Gottlieb. They want to see more reports with information readers and viewers can use to make important decisions, but do not agree on a better system. Local news is praised for being […]

Does journalism matter? The public no longer reads us and politicians dismiss us, says Kyle Pope. “Here’s the bottom line,” he writes. “We do these stories because we believe in something even bigger than what will become of them.” They are important. Readers deserve to know them. They get us […]

Twitter pros and cons: A research article by Shannon McGregor and Logan Molyneux reports that Twitter affects journalists’ news judgment, leading to “pack journalism” Upside is “a wider array of voices into the mainstream news agenda.” Twitter plays a key role in journalistic practices, they write. “Twitter’s growing centrality in […]

Feminist fact-finding: Daniel Funke describes a project “going after false claims and online information about gender issues” in Europe. “FemFacts is aimed at tackling some of the false narratives about women published by European media,” Funke writes.   Visit the Ethics AdviceLine blog for more.

Media focus needed on climate change: Margaret Sullivan writes that a week of dire news conceals the urgency of a United Nations report on global warming. “Just as the smartest minds in earth science have issued their warning, the best minds in media should be giving sustained attention to how […]

Kavanaugh story told in photos: Darrel Frost tells how the New York Times used two images to show contrasting views in the Kavanaugh hearing. “This is masterful storytelling on the part of the Times’s photo editors,” writes Frost. “It’s rare we see a national political figure in such aggressive visage […]

Hostile media effect: John Davis cites a media expert on public bias toward political  reports. “Hostile media effect involves people who are on opposite sides of an issue who both believe the same report is biased against their own point of view,” writes Davis. News consumers should think about political […]

PBS editor quits, dismayed: Sydney Smith reports that departing public editor Mahulika Sikka found the public does not understand PBS. “During my time as public editor at PBS,” she told Smith, “I was most struck by the fact that most people don’t understand the system, how it was set up, […]

Journalism’s top problems: Jay Rosen lists challenges that torment journalists, including a right-wing populist wave across the U.S. and Europe that views the mainstream press as corrupt and elitist. “In the United States the president is leading a hate movement against journalism,” Rosen writes. He also finds that discovering a […]

Celebrity death hoaxes: Daniel Funke and Alexios Mantzarlis report that celebrity deaths are a popular subgenre of misinformation and offer 15 fact-checking links. “At a time when we are at pains to distinguish ‘real news’ from ‘fake news,’ falling for these shallow fabrications undermines the argument,” they write.   […]