PressEthic

These days, with just about every cell phone equipped with a digital camera, anyone is eligible to become a photojournalist. Starting today, Reuters and Yahoo News are welcoming submissions of digital pictures from plebs like you and me.

It’s no news that newspaper staffs love blogs, and that many news sites host a variety of them. Topics range from your basic political commentary, to weird sports and pet obsessions. The advantage for the newspaper is, of course, a more engaged audience in an age of quickly changing media technology.

Trend pieces are notorious for running on the power of a few amazing quotes, exclusive scenes, and the appeal of the story to excite readers. Throwing sex and teenagers into the mix makes the story even juicier– even if the facts are, at best, shaky. And that, of course, is the problem with trend pieces as city of Baltimore is slowly realizing about a batch of stories that reported the supposed popularity of so-called “sex parties.”

It’s no news that advertising is a huge part of any publication. Visually, it’s seen on every page, though it’s usually pretty easy for readers to gloss over. The exception is when advertisers and editors try for something cheeky, like in the recent case for one Oregon newspaper.

On Monday, Editor & Publisher reported that two North Carolina newspapers have issued official apologies for supporting race riots that occurred across the state over a hundred years ago.

A digitally edited photo of ABC news anchor Elizabeth Vargas in the December issue of Marie Claire magazine has stirred up some controversy with both the newswoman and her network. The picture in question depicts Vargas sitting at her news desk, smiling for the camera, and ready to report the news – all while breastfeeding.

New York Times public editor Byron Calame recently devoted an entire column to the subject of balanced reporting in terms of reporters making fair attempts at getting quotes from both sides of the stories they cover.

Newspapers are full of advertisements, and while most are of the tame and boring variety, publishers sometimes manage to slip in those that are silly or even embarrassing for the gentle reader.

Up until recently, the citizens of Providence, Rhode Island could depend on the editorial pages of their newspaper, The Providence Journal, to support a critical and oppositional view a proposed Harrah’s Entertainment-Narragansett Indian casino in West Warwick, Rhode Island.

Philadelphia Magazine’s most recent front cover story on a surge of murders in the city (and it’s accompanying graphic) has hotel owners concerned over how it will portray the city to visitors, and Ed Grose, executive director of the Hotel Association has asked managers to refrain from outfitting their rooms with the issue.

Earlier this week, Vermont Public Radio barred Union candidate Peter Diamondstone from taking part in a U.S. Senate debate, claiming concerns over whether the “perennial protest candidate might subject the station to severe penalties under new federal broadcast indecency laws.”

After all, shouldn’t someone who call his or herself a journalist ask the tough questions and unearth some real stories behind Hollywood?

Maybe next time the staff should just open up the phone lines to readers and let them submit their own ideas. I’m sure they’d come up with slogans just as clever and at least the paper couldn’t be accused of using print space as their own comedic soap box.

The article in question explored Chicago’s urban development and the trend of moving the mega mansion to the city, usually at the price of disrupting the flow of historical architecture already in place. Though most parts were accurately and fairly reported, others, McNulty writes, were not.

In a column posted yesterday on the Harper’s magazine website, writer Ken Silverstein defended his publications decision not to run the news of the Mark Foley scandal months ago. He argued that because information of the inappropriate emails Foley sent to a young page was made available to media outlets months ago, there is little weight to the conservatives claim that the scandal was over-hyped and well-calculated by Democrats and, of course, the so-called liberal media.