PressEthic

The obvious questions that arises is what should a journalist do when they can’t get solid proof to back up their story? Are speculation and a general acceptance enough to report on? While I understand that the issue of steroid abuse could have been addressed earlier, doing so in vague ways doesn’t do much to support the quality of sports journalism.

The story of Mark Foley has many angles and unanswered questions. Everyday we learn something new about this scandal. In a New York Times article on October 3, we learn that two newspapers had copies of emails Foley sent a year ago. They held the emails because they couldn't get enough solid information to produce a story. Were they right?

A 180 in the Miami Herald scandal. What do make of this?

Though the suffering of animals is tragic, the point is that journalists are paid to portray the truth, even when the truth is hard to accept.

Evan Weiner, author of "Business and Politics of Sports," questions if sportswriters can be trusted to expose steroids use, as an "Editor & Publisher" story suggests.

The government is paying universities to develop software that will “identify common patterns from numerous sources of information which might be indicative of potential threats to the nation,” by combing foreign newspapers for their coverage of the U.S.

A YouTube video post attempts to unmask liberal bias in the media. At what point does theory become paranoia when technical mistakes are deemed malicious?

A man filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court in Denver, C.O. yesterday, accusing a member of the Secret Service of violating his 1st Amendment rights and for illegal search and seizure. The man, Steven Howard, was arrested by the Secret Service after he made a critical anti-war statement to Dick Cheney in a mall in Denver. The charges against him were later dropped. Two other lawsuits of 1st Amendment violations involving the Bush adminstration have been filed. Do I see a pattern emerging?

The results of a study released today show that The Daily Show coverage is just as substantive as that of network news broadcasts, which seems potentially problematic for Conservatives who were already hot and bothered that so many young people receive their traditional "news" from Stewart's show.

Greg Mankiw explains how the truth can be misleading.

Cameron Crowe did it years ago and the product, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, became a sensational cult classic.

Fifteen years later, a 24-year old Stanford graduate enrolls undercover in a local public high school and chronicles what he sees. The result is High School Confidential, a new book by Jeremy Iversen.

But what is Iversen's true intent?

With all of the media attention being given to former Congressman Mark Foley's inappropriate conduct, it isn't surprising that questions would be raised regarding how the story actually developed, and whether news organizations had a responsibility to act on anonymous sources that could have brought this story to light a long time ago. An article in the New York Times today entitled, "Papers Knew of Foley E-Mail But Did Not Publish Articles" describes the situation as controversial.

Arianna Huffington criticizes the media reception of Bob Woodward's new book, which was lauded for "uncovering" that the Bush administration has been lying to the American public.

In reading several of the articles about the conflict of the new Bob Woodard book and the Bush administration I am confused as to why the Bush administration would immediately refute the claims in the book.

A front page article in the New York Times discusses the current problems with the housing market, as bolstered by Census Bureau data. This issue is not particularly "newsy," yet it indirectly taps into voters' negative feelings about the economy (and thus their tendency to turn on the party in power). With barely a month before mid-term elections, the decision to make this a front-page article is interesting, especially given the frequent accusations of liberal bias that the Times receives.