My reaction to your comments
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Excellent discussion, which leaves much to unpack. Here are
a few ideas.
Yes, you are correct that the description is brief. I did
that to emphasize a key aspect of the Potter Box: Often we rush toward an ethics decision without taking into
account enough basic facts. That’s why Christians described The PB as a circle. The journalist begins with “the facts” but frequently has to return to
the beginning to get more of them.
Many of you talked about how we first must consider the
journalist as a private citizen, exercising a 'God given' right outside hir role as a journalist. (I’m sorry. But today I just can’t use “their” in spite of
recent AP approval because I’m feeling old-fashioned. In fact, I’m drinking one.)
In such instances, you are marching not to write about your
experience, either as news or as opinion. But as Racquel points out, many news
organizations have strict rules about employees participating in political
activities that, management says, will bring into question the “objectivity” of
the publication.
Here’s a chunk of an article from the Berkeley Daily Planet
more than a decade ago. Copy editor Gordon Bill Pates was reassigned because he gave money to presidential candidate John Kerry. Also:
• In March 2003,
technology reporter Henry Norr was suspended and then fired after he
participated in civil disobedience at an anti-war rally. In a statement printed
in the paper, managers claimed that Norr had violated the ethics policy, since
“any journalist who assumes a prominent public role in any political issue
inevitably creates the appearance of that conflict [of interest].” Norr argued
that his activism created no conflict of interest, since he wrote about
computers, not politics and war. He claimed that the true motive for his firing
was retaliation for his opposition to the Iraq war and the occupation of
Palestine. Again, an outpouring of public support failed to move the Chronicle.
Norr filed a union grievance and a criminal complaint, but the parties
eventually settled out of court, and Norr never returned to his job. (Full
disclosure: the author of this article is the daughter of Henry Norr.)
• In March 2004,
reporter Rachel Gordon and photographer Liz Mangelsdorf were barred from
covering San Francisco’s same-sex marriages after they married each other. Some
observers compared the Chronicle’s actions to prohibiting black journalists
from covering civil rights protests. Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Bevan Dufty
organized a support rally for Gordon and Mangelsdorf, and the National
Association of Gay and Lesbian Journalists denounced the Chronicle’s move. Once
again, managers did not respond. In this case, the Chronicle’s arguments about
journalistic objectivity were rendered all the more bizarre by the paper’s
enthusiastic support of gay marriage. It was an official sponsor of this year’s
marriage-themed Gay Pride Parade, ran pink advertisements proclaiming “We come
out every day,” and posted an album of same-sex wedding pictures on its
website.
Credibility and ethics
Chronicle managers justified
most of these incidents by arguing that the paper must protect its credibility
and avoid accusations of bias. But restricting workers’ political rights is not
a standard component of respectable journalism. Ted Glasser, director of
Stanford’s graduate program in journalism, says that the ethics policy is
“inappropriate, although unfortunately it’s not peculiar to the
Chronicle.”
First of all,
reporters are human beings, and their biases won’t disappear simply because
they’re not allowed to put bumper stickers on their cars. “The policy doesn’t
prevent conflicts of interest, it just encourages employees to hide their
interests,” said Glasser. This makes it more difficult for readers to
critically evaluate what they read.
Furthermore, “conflict
of interest” usually refers to a situation where a reporter has a financial or
personal stake in the subject she’s covering—like a business reporter who
writes about a company she owns stock in. Chronicle managers have never
explained how expressing a political opinion constitutes a conflict of
interest. “You can have interests and act professionally,” said Glasser. “In
Pates’ case, the individual didn’t benefit in any way from his contribution,
and there’s no evidence that he was biased.”
Here’s a section from build-your-own-code-of-ethics by
the Online News Association:
The traditional
approach of journalism in Western societies has been that journalists must
abstain from direct political activity. Most mainstream media organizations bar
employees from such activities. The
SPJ Code of Ethics says that journalists should “avoid political and other
outside activities that may compromise integrity or impartiality, or may damage
credibility.” The New York Times ethics handbook says that staff journalists are “entitled to
vote,” but warns them off anything more involved. “Journalists have no place on
the playing fields of politics,” the handbook states, and then iterates a
laundry list of political no-nos for its writers: no campaign buttons,
candidates’ lawn signs or political donations, among others.
Here’s more from NY Times ethics guide dated 2004
but still linked to today.
65.
Staff members may not
march or rally in support of public
causes or movements,
sign ads taking a position on public
issues, or lend their
name to campaigns, benefit dinners or
similar events if
doing so might reasonably raise doubts about
their ability or TheTimes’s ability to function as neutral
observers in covering
the news. Staff members must keep in
mind that neighbors
and other observers commonly see them
as representatives of
The Times.
And here’s a more contemporary discussion from earlier this
year. (See boldface.)
Non-Marching Orders: Newspaper Bars Employees from
Women’s March
By Maria Gaura
Over the course of the 2016 election, media companies
wrestled with increasingly knotty ethical challenges—how to avoid false
equivalencies in reporting, what to call a blatant lie, and how to respond
professionally (impartially?) to a candidate who routinely called journalists “liars”
and “scum”.
As Inauguration Day draws near, and Donald Trump’s attacks
on news media and individual reporters escalate, newsrooms are girding
themselves for battle with a renewed emphasis on journalistic ethics. But some
new rules aimed at placing journalists above reproach, are raising questions
about First Amendment rights.
San Francisco Chronicle
Editor-in-Chief Audrey Cooper raised eyebrows recently by notifying newsroom
employees that participation in the January 21st Women’s March on Washington,
or any similar marches, would be considered a violation of the newspaper’s
ethics policies, a potential firing offense.
“No newsroom employee, regardless of job function or title,
can participate in political demonstrations of any sort,” Cooper wrote, as part
of a longer email to staff. “This is effective immediately.”
Political reporters, especially at legacy media, generally
embrace stringent limits on personal expression. Most commonly, journalists are
forbidden to donate to candidates or political causes, or take public positions
on issues they are assigned to cover, specifically including participation in
marches or protests.
But the Chron’s
non-marching orders apply equally to workers far removed from political
coverage: copy editors, page designers, sportswriters. And while the Women’s
March was specifically made off-limits, the Chronicle has long
encouraged employees to participate in San Francisco’s annual Gay Pride Parade, with staff and
management marching beneath a Chronicle banner.
“I believe
[management’s] argument has something to do with Pride being a celebration, and
the Women’s March, while billed as a civil rights event, is perceived as more
of a protest,” said a Chronicle staffer, one of several who declined to
be identified for this story. “But a lot of people see equal pay, gender
equality, and reproductive rights as civil rights. Nobody can tell us why the
Women’s March is considered political and Pride is not.”
Yet withdrawing Chronicle support from Pride in the
name of consistency, which nobody interviewed for this story suggested, could
raise other concerns.
“Gay Pride is
something that appeared to have left the realm of controversy, and gained a
solid public consensus,” said Edward Wasserman, Dean of Berkeley’s Graduate
School of Journalism and a professor of journalism ethics. “Twenty years
ago, reproductive rights were not considered controversial. Is that acceptance
problematized with a different crowd in power in Washington? Do we now take it
out again and have another look?”
One Chronicle staffer was more blunt. “When we write
about attacks on LGBT rights, or women’s rights, do we now assume civil rights
are negotiable? Do we say hey, on the other hand, here’s the anti-women,
anti-gay argument? Is it a false equivalency?”
Down the Peninsula at the San Jose Mercury News,
reporters and management have huddled repeatedly to discuss emerging ethical
concerns, according to Bay Area News Group
Executive Editor Neil Chase. But the paper has no blanket policy banning
participation in the Women’s March, or similar events.
“This is a topic of conversation in every news room, I
imagine,” Chase said. “Right now, the political climate makes us stop and
question everything, we are all being exceptionally careful. That said, I trust
everyone in my newsroom to make a lot of commonsense judgments every day, and
to talk to their editors when there’s an issue.
“You have to look at
things on a case-by-case basis,” Chase said. “Honestly, a bigger issue for me
is people posting their opinions on social media, sometimes very strong
opinions that they would not normally express in person. That’s a challenge
for us.”
Public broadcaster KQED has not singled out the Women’s March as an event of
special ethical concern, but forbids participation in events “to the extent
that participation may call [KQED]’s objectivity on a particular issue into
question,” per its ethics policy. KQED’s policy applies to staff responsible
for content on its radio, television and digital news operations.
“We haven’t revised our ethics policy in response to recent
events,” said Managing Editor for News Ethan Lindsey (UC Berkeley, 2000). “But
during the election campaign our Vice President of News Holly Kernan sent a
note to staff restating our ethics policies, and reminding people of our
responsibilities as journalists.”
The Chronicle has formed an internal committee to
examine and propose further changes to its official ethics policy, but in the
meantime, the Pacific Media
Workers Guild, which represents newsroom staff, has been asked by members
to weigh in on the no-marching rule.
“The Chronicle, to its credit, is trying to upgrade
standards,” said Guild Executive Officer Carl Hall (’82). “But we need clarity
on … the rights of people maybe not even indirectly involved in covering Trump
or women’s rights issues. My feeling is that any prohibition should be no
broader than necessary to keep the news free of suspicions of bias.”
The Guild is also an official sponsor of San Francisco’s
Pride celebration, Hall noted. “Maybe there is a difference between gay rights
and women’s rights events, but I don’t see it immediately.”
Applying First Amendment limitations to a wider swath of
employees is bound to cause a stir, Wasserman said, but the trade-off is a
stronger corporate public image.
“As a person who
frets over ethics, I don’t necessarily object to [the Chronicle’s new
rules], but I do quarrel with casting them as expressions of an ethical
position,” Wasserman said. “Avoiding the appearance of institutional bias is
really brand management, so let’s call it that.
“Publications like the National Review or Mother
Jones are proud to carry a banner of political orientation and preference,
and nobody reading them is misled,” Wasserman said. “The Chronicle is
holding a different banner aloft, and that is the banner of neutrality. And I
have respect for that, there is a niche in public discourse that
it fills.”
Chronicle Editor Cooper declined to discuss the issue
with a reporter but did offer two statements via email:
“I have … reminded our journalist employees that political
protest is not appropriate or ethical professional conduct. This newsroom will
continue to cover the president-elect, his policies and his administration. We
will do so ethically, honestly and unapologetically.
“Certainly, ethical discussions always involve shades of
gray. My job is to help our newsroom serve our readers and the public by
providing fair and accurate news coverage. That includes helping us avoid actual
or perceived conflicts of interest.”
Posted on January 18, 2017 - 1:58pm
Good stuff. And we haven’t even touched on how a journalist
should behave if assigned to cover the pride parade. Points you raised include:
·
Should you cover from the sidelines, moving
between participants and spectators, or march from beginning to end?
·
Should you identify yourself as a reporter? The
answer to this may seem obvious, but can you imagine instances where the
reporter might legitimately be undercover, perhaps when covering a Nazi rally?
(Our next essay will cover undercover reporting.) If you are walking along not
having identified yourself as a reporter, is it ethical to quote overheard
conversation. If I recall the relevant law, it is not invasion of privacy to
publish information overheard when the speaker should reasonably assume he or
she might be overheard. This situation may be a good example of something that is
legal but not ethical.
·
Should you lie to interviewee about supporting
the LGBT community? Why disclose at all? How about lying to create conflict.
(Back to “some people say.”)
·
Should you lie about or otherwise avoid using
information that contradicts your personal position or that of your
publication, which may well have a slant.
·
Should you keep interviewing until you are
content that you have at least made a good faith effort to discover contrary
opinion? One of the heartbreaks of J1 occurs when a student interviews five
people on a topic and begins, “Most USF students think that ….
·
Should a reporter – or more to the point a news
organization – embrace transparency to the extent a reporter covering a gay
pride parade disclose sexual orientation in a methods box at the end of the
story?
One final comment: Rawls insists that we as human beings
should always sympathize with the most disadvantaged, with the oppressed. Does
that mean a reporter should have a different mindset when covering a gay pride
parade in Cheraw, South Carolina, than in San Francisco?
