Traditional Fourth Estate journalists are being challenged by more than just business models. Jobs are scarce, and competing news creators challenge values that have been taught for years in the classroom.
At the Poynter Kent State Media Ethics Workshop, a panel of professionals discussing “When the News Finds You Through Social Media” offered these tips that should be integrated into journalism lessons now:
Use social media as a reporting tool.
Accept that Twitter and Facebook are means of finding and telling stories, not just places to promote stories and personalities. Social media can help journalists monitor geographical and hobby-based communities, discover trends, and find sources and witnesses.
But make sure that your students’ online presence conveys the appropriate message. Have students Google their own names and see what comes up — and what comes up first.
Students must balance personal and professional information. If they want to share personal information online, ask them to consider creating a public, professional profile that complements the private one aimed at friends and family. Journalists can attract unflattering and unsafe attention online, so make sure students are aware of the risks of sharing too much personal information. And remind students that their public, digital identities can be seen by anyone — their relatives, sources, coworkers and potential employers.
Before students use information they find online, ask them if they believe it and can verify it.
It’s better to be accurate than first. Credibility is a critical online value. The Web allows for rapid publishing but still requires thorough, sourced reporting. Journalists may love the thrill of the scoop, but the public rarely remembers who was first with a story. Instead, they recall the journalists who botched a story or cut corners (see Jayson Blair, Dan Rather and many others).
Acknowledge the Fifth Estate; your students may end up there.
Don’t be dismissive of the bloggers and aggregators who make up the Fifth Estate. Those nontraditional journalists may be the next generation’s Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow.
Fifth Estate sites command large audiences and mandate a fresh examination of journalistic practices and ethics. What role is there for nonbiased portrayal of facts on a site built on opinion or user submissions? Is the viewpoint of a site clear and transparent? What are the values that guide moderating comments or other user-submitted content?
Most journalism students will not end up in 20th century-style newsrooms. They may not have many, or any, experienced coworkers to lean on. Teach them questions they need to ask to make ethical decisions. Share resources like the Poynter On Call ethics hotline (877-639-7817).
Web 3.0 will be all about editing.
The second generation of Web publishing is defined by user participation, but Fark founder Drew Curtis believes that users expect higher-quality content than they get now. Time is too precious to wade through oceans of information, so they want “curated” content.
Journalists can reach savvy, next-generation news consumers by finding the most interesting, engaging stories and giving them crisp, exciting headlines. The loyalty of these news consumers will be based on quality and specificity.
If have you ask, “Is it ethically right?” it probably isn’t.
In the digital age it’s far too easy to spread rumors or falsity. And it’s easy to trade accuracy for speed. Journalists’ reputations (and that of their sites) are based on the credibility of their content. One’s reputation builds slowly over time but can be tarnished instantly by a bad decision.
Students must take the time to vet things that appear too easy or too simple. Have students question their sources to tease out the truth; spur them to ask themselves about the impact of publishing. Don’t let student journalists assume that if another site has published something, that’s a reason for them to publish as well.
