• The facts: Butts ,who was athletic director at Georgia at the time, in an article published by Saturday Evening Post, a child of the larger Curtis Publishing Company, was alleged of conspiring with Alabama head coach Bear Bryant on fixing a game which was an untrue claim that had the possibility of gravely effecting the careers of both Butts and Bryant. The original claim came from the an insurance agent who was said to overheard a telephone call between the two public figures. Both Bryant and Butts sued for 10 million each, but settled for less in the end.

• The issue: The issue that this case concerned was, are news organizations able to be held liable for false allegations that are recklessly made and published against public figures.

• The rule: The ruling concerned the first amendment and established protection against defamation claims brought up by private individuals.

• The holding: Libel damages may be recoverable if the injured party is a non-public official; as long as claimants demonstrate a reckless lack of professional standards on the part of the organization in examining allegations for reasonable credibility.

• The rationale: The courts decision, in my opinion, was based off the ideals of protecting freedom of speech, and holding people who have the right to free speech to standards that protect the innocent.

• The disposition: The court affirmed the decision.

I’m going to approach the summarization of the five articles by first talking about the three from sbj.org and the first article from poynter.org, then talk about the two articles on the food lion topic separately to help avoid confusion.

First, off I found the first four articles to have a common message in that journalists should stay as close to the absolute truth in all reporting and reveal absolutely everything they can to promote the validity of the story and to protect themselves and their employers.

I found the first sbj article on anonymous sources to bring a lot of light on to when anonymous sources may be okay to use and how they can either protect the source or harm the journalism. As a journalist I think its very important to seek truth and reveal it, and by that, that does entail telling the public all they’re entitled to which often includes sources. In addition, I think its very important to have a clear, written or spoken, contract with the source you’re reporting and make sure that your both on the same page like this article suggests. I think by doing this you are not only protecting the source and verifying their intents but you can also be helping yourself and the employer you are writing for by protecting yourself from lawsuits.

The second sbj article on when sourced wont talk gave a great example of this and showed the obstacles one may encounter if they feel they have real, valid evidence of something but cant get the subjects to speak out on this issue. By finding the pictures that the initial letter was written about I feel that the newspaper had enough evidence, in this minor case, to openly report that this event had happened, although they had too little evidence to add any further comments. By publishing the letter they avoided ethical concerns because they didn’t write about it personally, and they didn’t publish anything that wasn’t already confirmed. As with most things involving college aged students and greek life, conflict still came about but I feel that the newspaper handled it in the best possible way and stayed true to journalism ethics through the course of the issue. The only thing that I think would have been even more beneficial for the paper would to have published one of the Facebook photos under the letter to show further evidence, since a picture speaks a thousand words and the subjects wouldn’t even speak one word.

The third sbj article brought light upon ways that ethics in journalism can become cloudy when it contains a lot of notoriety and can have monetary gains. It also shows how this cloudiness can occur right in front of the publics eye without anyone noticing a ton, which is made evident by the 8 million viewers the crime tv show in question had. As with anything money and notoriety can cause people to act in ways differently than they would if no money or fame was involved but it is important to try and not let money lead you in decisions and stay true to your core ethics. The points made in this article on how to try and stay true to your ethics are as follows:

— Avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when traditional open methods will not yield information vital to the public. Use of such methods should be explained as part of the story.
— Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
— Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money, avoid bidding for news.
— Avoid misleading re-enactments or staged news events. If re-enactment is necessary to tell a story, label it.
— Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing.
— Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
— Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.
— Be judicious about naming criminal suspects before the formal filing of charges.

These seem to be very common sense but can become cloudy when these issues arise in reality because there are so many other things going on and it is often hard to focus on the right when the wrong seems so rewarding. In my writing and whatever else I do, I feel that using the above list is a good template on how to be ethical in writing in cases that may be highly publicized.

The fourth article on ethics published by poynter.org talked about steps to getting good sources. I think this article, as well as the others, is important in writing and I think this one can be directly applied to the article we previously read on the reporter misreporting the UVA rape case since sources were limited and skewed in the original story. These five steps outlined seem to be very common sense but are important to remember, they include things like small talk, not being a stranger, knowing the terms of “off the record”, obtaining more sources and not getting to involved with your sources. All five of these things help improve the validity of your sources when writing and don’t seem to difficult to follow.

To conclude on the articles about ethics and sources, I think they all posed valid points that are important to remember. While many point towards things that are common sense, I can see how the lines may become cloudy when posed with something groundbreaking and how it is important to keep all the points mentioned above in mind. One way I personally would do this is to add them to a checklist, like we read about last week, that I would use when finding and interviewing sources to make sure I hit all the important points without forgetting my ethics.

As far as the two latter articles on the food lion issue go, they are really surrounding one question as stated in the article published on poynter.org which is “Is it ever justifiable for a journalist to violate the principle of honesty to honor the principle upon which journalism is founded, a duty to provide the public with meaningful, accurate and comprehensive information about significant issues? “.

The issue arose when ABC sent undercover workers, who lied on applications, into a grocery store where they obtained undercover footage of meat practices that were thought to be illegal and wrong. The network later aired the footage which led to a court battle between ABC and The Food Lion on whether it was illegal for reporters to use information obtained by lying and committing acts of fraudulence. The first court found ABC guilty on several counts and at first brought over 7 million dollars of compensation on them which was later brought down to just over three grand. Then both parties appealed in and that court only upheld the crime of breach of loyalty and trespass in which food lion was awarded 2 million dollars.

The question this issue brought up was regarding if it is okay for reporters to use measures like this to report important issues. A common belief is that it is just if and only if the story they are unveiling is of the most extreme importance and will benefit the public in grand ways. I do agree that reporters should have the right to reserve the use of these measures to bring light upon people and companies acting unjust although I also agree that it should only be used on important cases. I think that if people benefit and the person or company is acting in an illegal manner then the law should not protect the lawbreakers and it should protect the person trying to bring light on the felon.

Although I am to young to remember this Food Lion issue in real time, the article did provide many interesting facts that posed questions on how far a reporter can ethically go and I think that’s very important.

New York Times vs Sullivan was a groundbreaking case occurring 51 years ago that originated in the Alabama Supreme Court and made it’s way all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. This case was groundbreaking in the sense that it addressed a constitutional right of reporters and removed a lot of the fear previously prevalent with reporting on civil rights issues. Below are the keys facts pertaining to the case:

• The issue: Sullivan had originally sued the New York Times for libel after they published an article entitled “Heed their Rising Voices” which did not actually refer to Mr. Sullivan but he felt that implied actions of him that he felt to be untrue and derogatory. With little evidence of malice, and no prior established malice standard, the Alabama court ruled in favor of Sullivan and he was awarded $500,000 after suing both The Times and four pastors. The Times then brought this case in front of the supreme court and the supreme court found Alabamas ruling to not protect the safeguards for freedom of the speech and freedom of the press which are constitutional rights.

• The rule: The ruling of this case was based off the first and fourteenth amendments of the constitution.

• The holding: Although New York Times was found guilty in the original case, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case and established the standard for actual malice from this case which is now needed to establish libel against public figures in the United States and can be simply defined as “publishing information that was knowingly false with ill intent and disregard”

• The rationale: The Supreme Court founded the standard for actual malice from this case on the basis of the First Amendment protects the publication of all statements, even false ones, about the conduct of public officials except when statements are made with actual malice.

• The disposition: Reversed and remanded.

Sources:

Title: New York Times v. Sullivan Reconsidered: Time to Return to “The Central Meaning of the First Amendment”

Author(s): Anthony Lewis

Source: Columbia Law Review, Vol. 83, No. 3 (Apr., 1983), pp. 603-625

URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1122305

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/content/nyt-sullivan-case.html

To begin, I found all three articles extremely important, and enjoyed the way that all three of them approached similar errors in journalism in different ways, all offering their own unique solution. As we all know from our previous class discussion, publishing an error of any size can have grave consequences, even if retracted at some point. With that being said, I think that there is immense importance on ensuring all your facts are correct prior to publishing anything, and if they’re not then stressing a retraction in ways that will reach all the prior audiences and make the most satisfying impact on all involved.

I thought the first article in which we were to read, which was written by Steve Buttry on the importance of checklists in journalism stated some very good points that I think are relevant to all writers. I was surprised to read that the journalism code of ethics has not put in place a checklist to ensure the highest level of accuracy in writing a story because to me it seems like a no brainer way to help journalist avoid falling victim to people who give falsified information, and to help journalist who are concerned about a time limit make sure they’ve hit all their marks. I did see in the article though that the checklist may not be required ethically some people are still using it, and I think if I were ever writing a piece to be published, or even a piece to be submitted then I would definitely use some sort of checklist similar to Buttry’s.

As far as the second article on the Dangers of Speed vs Accuracy, author Don Campbell weighed both the pluses and negatives of choosing speed over accuracy or vice versa, and while I firmly believe that accuracy is most important, I am not a journalist and I do see points on both sides of the issue. I think Campbell also stated an interesting fact that many of us don’t think about which was libel and how this pretty serious crime has an effect on social media posts.

Personally, I thought the third article was the most interesting. In this piece, Craig Silverman wrote about how journalist can do a better job at correcting errors made on social media and some of the statistics behind it. Reporters, both professional and amateur, posting incorrect information on social media sites like twitter has definitely become an epidemic in the state we currently live in, and I never gave much thought about this topic until reading this piece. I do see how statistically the incorrect posting often has many more views than the corrected post because not only is it the first to become live, it often times is more dramatic and is posted closer to the time of the event or incident. I think Silverman’s emphasis on reaching out to the same channels for a correction was an important point because if you got news from a source on one platform, one is pretty likely to continue to use said platform. In addition to Silverman’s talk about corrections over social media, I also have to point out that I totally agree with his point of corrections make people seem more honest. If a person is able to come out and say “Hey, I messed up” then they are likely to come out in other cases too.

Overall, I thought all three of these articles were worthwhile reads and I took away something from each one that I will seek to use if I am ever in a situation where I have to publish something, either traditionally or electronically that is important, (unlike me tweeting that I’m tired or hungry, which is always factual, but isn’t that important). Out of the three articles I found the one by Silverman the most interesting, probably because it’s so relevant in today’s society, and I found Buttry’s article to be the most important because it can be applied to all forms of writing and addresses not making a problem rather than fixing one.

Talking out the different aspects of the UVA rape article we had previously read helped me further wrap my head around my own personal thoughts about the article that I wasn’t previously aware of. First off, Id like to mention that I really think discussing the article as we did is immensely beneficial because I feel that by listening to others opinions and analogies on something, one is able to better understand the piece from several angles and obtain a stronger grasp on their own thoughts on the particular piece. With that being said, during this class I began to feel even more strongly that a lot of the errors that happened in this article were due to over-sensitivity to the “victim”. After thinking about this realization for a moment, it became apparent to me that a lot of problems that currently exist in our world are due to this state of being so concerned about feelings that we all act in an overly sensitive manner to people who victimize themselves. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that what Erdely did by publishing this article was justifiable, but it is fairly believable to me that she felt that having extreme empathy for the victim was alright. Putting the sensitivity issue aside for a minute, this class discussion also reiterated one of my initial thoughts of how can so many factual errors get past so many, reputable people. Now, I didn’t walk away from classing knowing for sure how this happened, but in line with my initial thoughts and the thoughts of my peers, I believe that there was some sort of monetary or notoriety factor impacting peoples actions.

“This is my blog for Comm 3404, Media Law and Ethics. All my posts can be found to the left and art titled after the article or case they analyze!”