PressEthic

Barbara Ehrenreich “has started an organization called United Professionals to help white collar workers, be they unemployed, uninsured, downsized, stressed out or merely anxious.”

The line between journalistic integrity and social responsibility can sometimes become ensnarled when reporting on topics of national security.

Yesterday, Yahoo! Sports broke the story about the allegations against Reggie Bush, 2005 Heisman Trophy recipient and former standout running back from the University of Southern California. He played an integral role in the Trojan's successive trips to the National Championship, and was the second player chosen overall (he was drafted to the New Orleans Saints) in the NFL's most recent draft. His abilities as a prodigy on the football field are virtually undisputed. His ethical decisions off the field, however, have been called into question.

National NFL writers for Yahoo! Sports Jason Cole and Charles Robinson published the findings of their eight-month long investigation in an article online yesterday.

For all of your writers who missed the entertainment news of last week, let me just inform you that freedom of speech is still alive whether its publicized or not. At last week's MTVs Video Music Awards emcee Mos Def was arrested for what is reported as "disorderly content." According to "Trace Magazine," the wordsmith pulled up to Radio City Music Hall uninhibitidly jeering his politcally fused "Katrina Clap," which targets President Bush and his pathetic response in assiting the hurricane katrina victims. What is especially interesting about the article is that his appearance was unplanned and not approved by memebers of the MTV staff. My question is "Why did no one really hear about this event?" It definately wasn't in any newspapers and surprisinly wasn't covered by BET (go figure). Nevertheless, is news like this not news? Is their a codebook of what makes political news notworthy? Was it not covered because he was a hip-hop artist? Let me know what you guys think? Would it have been different if Beyonce serenaded us with the same song and dance as Mos Def. . would the media have covered it more?

If you're trying to get an idea of where the Senate Judiciary Committee stands on the issue of wiretapping, you can look to either the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, or the Washington Post. Just don't try to compare all three.

The Complete New Yorker Portable Hard Drive could be mine, or yours, if I so desired a complete electronic archive of the magazine that dates back to its inception in 1925. In an age where the technological advancements are occurring almost too quickly to keep up with, it is no surprise that such electronic archives will soon be as easily accessible to us as the address book in our cellular telephones.

I started my first newspaper job as the editor of a little, 5,000 circulation weekly 30 miles outside of New Orleans. With a staff of three, I was as green as they come and working in the middle of nowhere. I had never thought of ethics. I was just glad to have a real job, and I was the editor. I loved that title, but I was about to learn what came with it: responsibility.

In a New York Times article from Wednesday journalist Jennifer Steinhauer reported on a story that initally broke in the Los Angeles Times. Comments made by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in private meetings with his staff were made available to the public through the campaign office of Democractic challenger Phil Angelides. How those audio files were accessed and subsequently reported is the rub.

In a New York Times article from September 9th, journalist Abby Goodnough reports on a story that broke in the Miami Herald the previous day. Both stories detail the remuneration journalists received from the U.S. government for submissions to Radio Marti and TV Marti. The ethical considerations seem to swirl around the fact that payment came from a government source, but is there more to consider?

I've got two nominees:

1) Nancy Grace interviewing Elizabeth Smart.

2) Connie Chung's swan song.

Sure, the Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley scandals were disgraceful... but I've seldom felt the awful emotion of embarassment for others more powerfully than when watching the clips linked above.

Recently, on myspace and youtube websites videos have been launched of a girl named Bree which has its fans questioning the whether the video itself is another creative marketing ploy of a big studio advertising for a movie or TV show.

Two reporters covering the Arizona-Mexico border come across an exhausted woman attempting to cross into the United States. She asks them for help as she feels stranded in the intensely hot desert air. What should they do?

'A Hole in the City's Heart' (New York Times, 9/11/06) sheds light to the complex grieving process of our nation, one that is often oversimplified by other 9/11 commemoratives.

Either stand behind your comics from the start or don't run it at all.

In a recent New York Times article, columnist Frank Rich uses a 9/11 photograph to bolster his argument that Americans "have moved on, but no one can argue that we have moved ahead." The photograph significantly assisted Rich in making his point, however, the assumptions that he (and the photographer) made about the subjects are completely inaccurate, as highlighted by Slate.com.