By Jeremy Gilbert and Jan Leach
Journalism values are no doubt changing, but it’s not professionals who are driving these changes.
Last week’s “Next Ethics?” workshop, hosted by Kent State University and The Poynter Institute, explored questions about how technology, innovation and new roles for non-professionals are forcing professional journalists to re-examine long-held beliefs and practices such as objectivity, transparency and the role of the press. Below, we’ve listed five related takeaways.
Consumers are much less likely to have a single, trusted source for news and information, according to Poynter’s Sense-Making Project and the Pew Project in Excellence in Journalism. Almost one-third of readers are not interested in objective news gathering and are actively looking for news presented from their political point of view, said Kelly McBride, Poynter’s senior faculty member who leads the Sense-Making Project. Similarly, there is more deception and distortion presented, and the task of seeking truth from so many different viewpoints is more difficult than ever.
The Sense-Making Project suggests that the traditional Fourth Estate is getting smaller, while the Fifth Estate — which includes citizen journalists — is getting larger. This has blurred the definition of journalism and opened up problems of context, verification and distribution.
The line between facts and opinions is also blurring. This troubles ProPublica’s Paul Steiger, who said, “While we all have opinions, and while our democracy is to some extent premised on the notion that all opinions weigh equally … facts are more elusive.” It can be much harder, he said, to pin down facts.
Social media allows more people than ever to share information, but much of that information is really opinion and not fact. Not everyone publishing “news” has the ability to gather and verify facts. Reporting is not a universal skill and not everyone has learned it. Nor does everyone want to learn it, Steiger said.
Steiger noted that these new newsgathering practices can lead to “murky” ethical practices and that “truth in labeling is imperative.” He insisted that opinion pieces online be clearly labeled to differentiate them from stories based on fact. This is to help readers understand what is truth and what is “reported opinion.”
When presenting large data sets, a combination of transparency and editorial judgment is critical. Sarah Cohen, Knight professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University, said users expect access to the same information as the media, so journalists should let users see what they see when they present data.
Journalists cannot be paralyzed by the need to verify every bit of data. The public is savvy enough to know that not all data is perfect, but transparency about the origin of data and its quality is still important.
Adrian Holovaty, developer of EveryBlock and a member of Poynter’s national advisory board, reminded journalists that presenting data is an exercise of editorial judgment and that the presentation of data can be unnecessarily intrusive.
Holovaty said he envisions data leading to community involvement. Instead of relying on journalistic authorities analyzing the meaning of data, he suggested people evaluate it for themselves and post queries to others to add context.
Online comments on news stories can expand, narrow or expose the community. Professional journalists are now asked to do much more than just report and present news; they are expected to engage with their audiences. Constructive or even critical comments can help build community and expand the audience for a story. Healthy debate may lead to follow-up stories or community action.
But negative comments or users who believe the comments sections is their exclusive domain can actually drive away readership. The Akron Beacon Journal and the Cleveland Plain Dealer have assumed much more active moderation strategies to encourage users to identify themselves and act civilly when commenting.
Bruce Winges, editor of the Akron Beacon Journal, explained during the workshop that Facebook comments on Beacon Journal stories are much more civil than anonymous comments on the Beacon Journal’s website because most Facebook commenters use their real names.
According to John Kroll, director of training and digital development for The Plain Dealer, the first step to building a better commenting community is to draw clear lines about the rules and then be ready to explain and reiterate them.
Transparency becomes even less apparent as the relationship between PR folks and the media changes. The relationship between public relations professionals and the media is different than it once was, and so are the tensions and ethical questions they face.
Lauren Rich Fine of Kent State, formerly a managing director at Merrill Lynch, described problems such as bloggers being “paid” in currency or product without disclosing that fact. She also said media cutbacks have led news organizations to use press releases verbatim.
Public relations professionals need to learn to stand up for the public, for customers and those who give client organizations the right to exist, said Michael Cherenson, past chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America. Likewise, media consumers need to be more skeptical. And everyone in the news business needs to be more vigilant when it comes to accuracy and verification.
In today’s fast-paced online news environment, PR and journalism depend on each other more than ever, but with that dependence comes a need for transparency about who generates stories and how they are published.
