Tuesday, August 22, 2006
A question of ethics
The year was 1981. USC Today Editor Erin Emery and the news editor at the time (whose name completely escapes me) decided on a lark to run for ASG president and vice president, more as a flip-of-the-finger to the ASG old guard (with whom we had been warring for years) than through any genuine political ambitions. Then something unexpected happened. Their campaign got legs. People started taking them seriously. It looked like they might actually win. They began aggressively campaigning and discussing in more specific terms what they might do if elected. They held a press conference in Sally Watkins' "News Beats and Features" class. I was in the audience. I asked three questions: 1) "Do you ascribe to the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics?" 2) "If you do, how can you justify having your names appear on bylines and in the masthead of the Today when this creates such an obvious appearance of conflict of interest?" 3) "Are you ready to resign your editorships in order to pursure your political ambitions without compromising the credibility of the USC Today?" By the end of the day, they dropped out of the election. Don' get me wrong. Erin would have made a spectacular ASG president. As it is, she has become an absolutely top-flight journalist. And I think she would agree that this firsthand education in journalism ethics was an important lesson. I'm told we now have the ASG president serving as an editor of the Today. Has our grasp of journalism ethics -- and its essential role in helping preserve the credibility, and thus the future, of our craft -- eroded to the point that this raises no red flags among the newspaper staff or department faculty? Or is this an exercise in situational ethics: "we don't have that many strong news/editorial students; they should be free to explore all the university has to offer, etc." I say students should be encouraged make the most of their experience here. But ethics is about making choices. And by not forcing a choice, you have deprived this student of a foundational piece of journalism education -- and have sent the wrong message to the rest of your students. Every day as a working journalist provides dozens of chances to make the wrong decision, to get mired in ambiguity and expedience, to bend the rules just this once. We need more ethics education, not less. The newspaper, the department, the industry, needs more credibility, not less. If the Today is, indeed, going to be a first step into the real world of journalism, then these real-world situations must be addressed in a real-world fashion. Richard, if you were still editing a daily paper, what would you say to a member of your editorial team who decided to campaign for mayor?
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5 comments:
Mark certainly raises some valid issues in his posting. As the faculty adviser for the TODAY, I feel that I should respond.
The decision to allow Sammi Milyard to retain her position as life & leisure editor for the TODAY was not made without a great deal of thought and discussion. Sammi decided to run for student government president after I told her she would likely be appointed the life & leisure editor for the TODAY. She asked if I thought it would present a conflict of interest if she were elected. I told her that since she would not be charged with covering student government issues (since that area falls into the category of “news” not “life & leisure”), we could probably find a way to allow her to remain in the life & leisure editor’s position if she was elected student government president -- with the understanding that her administration would still be examined with a very critical eye by the students responsible for covering news in the TODAY.
On a relatively small campus like CSU-Pueblo, oftentimes just a handful of students will step forward into leadership positions, and, as a faculty member, I feel it is important for these students to get the richest experience possible while they are on campus. And I don’t think ethics will be compromised in this instance.
I am confident that the student editors who are responsible for news content of the TODAY in the upcoming semester will do their jobs as journalists and keep a watchful eye on student government this year -- without favoritism or cronyism. If readers of the TODAY feel this isn’t being done throughout the course of the fall 2006 semester, I encourage them to contact me (leticia.steffen@colostate-pueblo.edu or 719-549-2873) or the TODAY editors (today@colostate-pueblo.edu or 719-549-2847) to let us know.
I might also add that as the faculty adviser for the TODAY, I certainly won’t expect the students to give any favorable coverage to the CSU-Pueblo Faculty Senate just because I’m serving as the secretary of that governing body this year.
First, a clarification:
It was Sally McGill's feature writing class, not Sally Watkins. Dr. Watkins was a physics professor during the same time period. So much for MY cred!
Anyway, Leticia, you make some good points, and I commend you for wrestling with the issue even if I strongly disagree with your conclusion. As for your reference to the faculty senate, you're comparing apples and oranges. A search of the Today Online database reveals 43 stories written about ASG since the website launched. In that same period, faculty senate was mentioned three times, and all of those were one-line events calendar entries. Clearly the Today does not regularly cover the faculty senate so there is not even the appearance of a conflict of interest.
To answer the question put to me in the original post: I would have told that person, whether editor or reporter, that company policy forbad moonlighting and, therefore, the person would have to choose between two jobs, but could not keep both. If that sounds as if I'm begging the question, I'm not -- I'm simply adding more mud to the water, for, in fact, I have known more than one editor and/or reporter who held high office while performing as journalists. They were elected treasurers, vice presidents and even presidents of organizations such as Rotary, Elks, Lions, Knights of Columbus, etc. I met one who was a precinct captain for the Republican Party -- and in all cases I'm aware of, while one certainly could argue that someone in the community would perceive their memberships (and I believe that in all cases some in the community did just that), much less their officerships, as conflicts of interest, their organizations did not ask them to make a choice between those memberships and their journalism jobs. The media organizations did expect them to practice ethical journalism, i.e. not allow those memberships/officer positions to influence their coverage, editing, story play, etc.
The SPJ code certainly says "journalists should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived," but it does not say how that is to be accomplished. SPJ also says it does not expect it's ethical canons to be viewed as categorical imperatives and used in the way ethics rules are used in, say, law or medicine.
I'm comfortable with how this particular situation is being handled, and I trust the adviser and Today staff members to ensure that no decisions, coverage, play, etc. will give the readers cause to perceive that a conflict of interest exists. If the mere association of a feature editor's name, without regard for the actual journalistic performance of the editor, with that person's position within ASG is enough to raise CoI complaints among some readers, I would suggest the Today, under the ethical canon of being accountable, explain the situation, as Leticia so aptly did here, so the public will know, as we do, that no real conflict will be allowed to exist.
Just one more post and I'll shut up. Richard, in the context of a campus environment, comparing the ASG president to an officer in a service organization is, to say the least, disingenuous. The more apt comparison would be a newsroom employee serving as mayor of his or her town. And even with every possible check and balance in place, there would be no way to avoid the perception of bias among readers, not to mention a chilling effect, and possibly self-censorship, in the newsroom.
Like you, I've known some small-town editors and publishers who have indeed served as mayors or county commissioners. I know of none whose papers didn't suffer as a result.
Here's an interesting piece (I shared this with the Today editors last spring) to provide a little more context on this issue:
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=58&aid=100115
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