JRN 200: Speaking Of Ethics ...

... we're having an ethical problem in this class as of late.

A huge part of journalistic ethics is avoiding the appearance of a conflict of interest; that is, not reporting on people and places to which we have a personal or professional connection or interest.

So, if we're dating a basketball player, we should never write about the basketball team. If our sister is on student government, then that topic is off-limits. If we're in an anti-coal group, we should never write about coal specifically or energy in general.

That's because it's hard to be convincingly objective if we have a stake in the outcome. Common sense dictates that we won't be as critical of our friends, relatives and associations as we would be outside ones. There are few things as destructive to credibility as inside connections like those.

On the first multimedia assignment, I allowed conflict-of-interest waivers ON THAT ASSIGNMENT ONLY so you could get your feet wet in new mediums. For all other assignments, I assumed you would understand traditional conflict of interest rules would apply.

That assumption of mine was wrong. Many people had clear conflicts of interest in the second multimedia assignment. More troubling, some people had clear conflicts of interest in their second out-of-class stories (which never had such a waiver!).

Not only is it a clear violation of journalistic ethics, it defeats efforts to teach you necessary skills, like identifying and locating sources (which is harder to do when you don't already know them) and getting them to talk (likewise) and learning about entirely new subjects while on deadline (which is the vast majority of journalism; we don't have the luxury of picking-and-choosing things to report on; we report on what is necessary at the moment.)

(For example, on 9/11 journalists didn't have the luxury of talking to their own friends and relatives or changing the story topic; they had to talk to friends and relatives of people who just died, and they had to stick to the topic of global terrorism having come to the U.S., whether or not to subject was previously familiar to them. And did I mention this was all on a immediate deadline?)   

So, let me be clear now: from here on out, no conflicts of interest allowed on any assignment. The penalty for having a conflict of interest will be the same as a fatal: an automatic 1.0. If you need help in determining whether something or someone is a conflict of interest, it's your responsibility to contact me before the assignment is due.