I had a conversation with a student who was doing a story about journalistic ethics and standards for ASNE the other day. We talked at length about reporter responsibility, editorial decision-making, and audience expectations during this evolutionary change for journalism. Indeed, the profession has also been deeply concerned about these issues. But the interview also involved a discussion about how the Internet is melding private and public worlds, and what that means on a very practical level for journalists in the newsroom. Journalists want to have standards that guide the industry across media platforms, though their working ethics guidelines have also started to specify linking issues, for example. So much work has already been done, including by Poynter and cyberjournalist.net as well as individual media companies. Many of these standards have borrowed heavily from existing print guidelines. However, we cannot assume that our traditional notions of sensationalism, privacy, even ethics itself have remained intact as new media have developed.
An example of what I mean: today's editors routinely point readers to victims' Facebook sites, or download photos/material from these pages to include in news stories. Aren't there privacy issues here? Under traditional understandings of privacy (is there a reasonable expectation of privacy, is it in a public space), the answer is no. The Web is public. Period. But the reality is much different. A friend told me she wanted to publish her highly personal memoir on her MySpace page. I asked her if she had thought about the implications. Anyone she had ever known, or would ever know would read it. It would be there decades from now in some form. Today's co-workers would read it. Future employers would find it. Was she prepared for that? She's thinking about it. We all need to be thinking about this. Is the Facebook page now equivalent to someone's front yard? I'm not saying journalists shouldn't glean information in this manner. I'm just saying they shouldn't do it without a conversation. And citizens need to be involved in that discussion of audience expectations. We need to develop and expand on our media literacy teachings in junior high schools, when people start creating MySpace and other social networking pages in earnest.
But journalists also need to be thinking on a meta-conceptual level about all of this. These online guidelines emphasize transparency, and often publication on the Web of certain material is done under this standard. Yet just because we have access to certain information, and we can publish it under the guise of providing transparency, doesn't mean we should. These days -- at least in my sphere -- the word gatekeeping harbors negative connotations sometimes. In fact, there are people who would like to do away with the concept entirely, change it to 'gatewatchers' or 'networked journalism' or 'information facilitators'. But there is something to be said for information synthesis and thoughtful presentation -- accomplished with a holistic view of the cultural and social implications of publication.
But there are counter arguments to this way of thinking as well. What are they? What do others think?
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13 comments:
I don't think using pictures from or pointing reader's to Facebook is an invasion of privacy. Users of the internet should be aware that what they put on the internet can be viewed by anyone. The more important question is should journalists use the internet in their reporting. I think this could be viewed as poor journalism. It can still be transparent, yes, but is it a good source? For pictures perhaps, for quotes never. One of the roles of a journalist is to sift through the mountains of information and find out what is relevant to the public. In an effort to report the most accurate information, I think journalists should be more choosy about their sources than just relying on a website.
I too think that people must be wary of what they put online; with developments like these and future employers using facebook and mysepace pages in their hiring decisions, though, the message is starting to get across to most people.
On the ethics side, though, I think it's perfectly fine to use these sights to gain information, so long as they're not the primary sources. It's one thing to gain background about a person from their profile to better inform an interview, but quite another to publish only what's found online without verification or context.
I agree with what was said in the two posts before mine; I think that people who add personal information to sites on the internet are, because of the public nature of the medium, implicitly allowing this information to be public. I would also like to bring up something from the Schudson reading. He quotes Richard Hoggert, who he says "has written that the most important filter through which news is constructed is (quoting Hoggert) 'the cultural air we breathe, the whole ideological atmosphere of our society, which tells us that some things can be said and others had best not be said.'"
I think that sites like facebook and MySpace have become a part of our "cultural air" and the "ideological atmosphere of our society," and therefore I think journalists have the right to construct the news based on information from those sites, if it is pertinent to their story.
I too agree with the above comments that by publicly displaying personal content online, we are indirectly giving permission for this infomation to be accessed or abused. However, I do believe that journalists should be held to a certain standard if they do choose to gain information for a story. I would like to site the Gannett ethics piece here. In the "seeking and reporting the truth in a truthful way" section, it states, "We will hold factual information in opinion columns and editorials to the same standard of accuracy as news stories". The information posted on these sites does in some form resemble a column, where opinions and personal information is exposed, and I feel that journalists sometimes take advantage of the easy access to this information without fully researching it. Related to this, the next point in the Gannett list is "We will seek to gain sufficient understanding of the communities, individuals and stories we cover to provide an informed account of activities. Many times, the information found on facebook or myspace sites is taken for fact by journalists before they fully investigate the sources or gain an understanding of the situation. Given all of this, I think that users to need to be cautious and realize the risk in posting personal information. However, journalists also may need to adjust the standards when it comes to these new forms of media.
-Natalie H.
I find it intriguing that anyone would post something to the Internet that they did not feel was totally accessible to the public. That being said, it is my stance that those who post things to the Web have surrendered their privacy over that content to journalists, employers or anyone else who may choose to access that information.
But the real question here is should journalists be accessing information like this to create their stories. I would agree with Sue's comment that we shouldn't assume our traditional notions remain the same across different types of media. Print media and internet media are two very different things and should be treated as such when it comes to standards.
So what is that standard? Considering that the Internet is a relatively new medium, that is something definitely still to be determined. But what it should be is a topic of much debate. Schudson would tell you that one of the main functions of journalists is to "create the news", linking us to Lippman's idea of pseudo-environments and social construct of reality. In light of these theories, we can take the stance that journalists play an important role in creating stories that shape our preception of the world around us. We can't experience everything as a first-hand eye witness so we rely on the media to present us with an accurate representation of what happened. Can they do this if they are drawing from a public source such as the Internet where anyone can post anything? Probably not.
This is not to say that the Internet is not a useful tool to gather background information, but it should certainly not be used as a soul source. Journalists should hold themselves to a higher standard and realize that when they are responsible for the construction of someone's reality, it is important that they are taking the time to construct an accurate one.
However, Schudson would also argue that within the political, economical, internal and cultural organizations that the media operates, it's virtually impossible to present the kind of accurate stories the public deserves to hear.
--nicole f.
I agree that the Internet is a public domain, so the information found on Facebook and MySpace is freely available for journalists to draw from. However, I also think it is important that journalists (or gatekeepers) engage in this process “with a holistic view of the cultural and social implications of publication,” as you posted. The facts published from personal profiles should be interpreted accurately and deemed necessary for explaining the truth of the story.
I took these notions from the Press Effect chapters that uses the term “Custodians of Facts” instead of gatekeepers to explain journalists’ role in society. The authors state, “The choices reporters make affect what the public knows, understands, and believes about the world.” Thus a reporter should “tell the truth as nearly as truth can be ascertained” (197). The Internet provides a wealth of information on people and issues right at journalists’ fingertips. This increase in facts can act as an advantage for discovering the “truth". The only drawback is journalists must also take more time to separate relevant from meaningless facts for a true representation of the story to the public. If Journalists deem information from Facebook or MySpace as one of these relevant facts, than I say use it.
I have to disagree with Natalie's assertion that by putting personal information on the web that we are, de facto, giving permission for it to be abused. We may be putting ourselves at risk for it to be abused, but at the same time, those reading it have a responsibility to use it in a responsible manner. As evidenced in the Gannett ethics reading, journalists have an especially high threshold of responsibility.
Suppose that the mayor's 17-year-old daughter lists binge drinking as one of her favorite activities on facebook (I use this example because I remember much being made of the Bush daughter's wild ways several years ago). While she may be dumb as a box of rocks for doing so, I would argue that journalists would be equally as unethical as the daughter is foolish were they to report on the subject. Though it may seem banal, one of the integrity standards listed in the Gannett reading reads: "We will always try to do the right thing." Perhaps that is the best rule a journalist can look to when dealing with this area. I think most would agree it would be wrong to report on the hypothetical situation with the mayor's daughter, as it is a private matter and probably doesn't have much to do with the dealings of the city official in question. I guess the main point I'm trying to drive home here is that all people, but especially journalists, have a responsibility to glean only what is truely newsworthy Facebook and other sites like it.
-Andrew W.
I agree with a-dubs' point about journalists' responsibility. I also think, based on other of Gannett's 'Principles of Ethical Conduct for Newsrooms,' that it is very important to print only material that is known to be true, and to keep statements in context.
I personally feel that it is foolish to post anything online that one wouldn't want others to view. However, I also know that sometimes information is posted that has been created by someone other than who it says. The anonymity of the Internet and the ease of contributing to Internet content has been a point of concern for some time in determining the legitimacy of a source for news, research, etc. This is also the case for personal profile sites since most of the time the only thing you need to register is an email address -- so who is to know if Jane Doe truly made her MySpace page or if someone else made it for her (either as blackmail or otherwise).
I understand the temptation to look to these types of sources for additional information on someone, but the content of these pages should be viewed with some hesitation – and certainly never used as a source without confirming that the information is accurate.
I think it is absolutely alright for journalists to use information from facebook, myspace and any other random info they might come across while surfing the Web.
One of the points listed in the Gannet document is "We will be honest in the way we gather, report and present news." Keeping this in mind, if valuable information about a story can be found on a site such as facebook, then, as long as the journalist is honest where they acquired their information and mentions in their story that they got info from facebook, I see absolutely no problem with using it. Is their some rule that says that using information from facebook and myspace is inherently an invasion of privacy? I don't think so.
I like the point about facebook being the equivalent of someone's front lawn. For example, if someone is being charged for murder, it wouldn't be very smart for them to leave the body of their victim lying in their front yard. Similarly, if someone is interviewing for a job and claims to have never smoked marijuana, it'd be stupid for them to have pictures on facebook of them smoking. People must be aware that the internet is a public forum and that information and pictures they post can be seen by just about anybody with internet access.
The internet is an invention that has revolutionized journalism. We now have instant access to information that would have taken hours or days to find only a decade ago. Clearly, the internet can be a great tool. That being said, journalists need to maintain the same ethical standards whether their source is a government official or a kid on Myspace. I agree that as long as journalists cite where they got their information from and provide some context, I don’t see any ethical problems with taking information from social networking sites like myspace or facebook.
If you don’t want a journalist to use information about you, then don’t put that information on the web. It’s as easy as that. While it’s true that other people can create pages under the guise of someone else, this just means that journalists need to be extra careful when taking information from the web. As was mentioned in the press effects chapter, journalists have a responsibility to be “aggressively skeptical.” Any informed journalist knows that 80% of what is on the web is BS. On the internet, people lie, people mislead, and sometimes people are just stupid. What kind of journalist is going to use a facebook page as the lone source for a story? The internet requires that all users—students, journalists, whoever—be cautious and skeptical.
Where do journalists draw the line? This question has posed problems for journalists in the past and will continue to do so in the future, especially considering technology. The problem is that journalists are human and are thus fallible, putting that line at a different place for each person.
I really enjoyed the Gannett ethics reading because it is so idealistic. If journalists actually adhered to these standards and particularly used “Careful judgment and common sense should be applied to make the decisions that best serve the public interest and result in the greatest good” then they wouldn’t be faced with this constant dilemma. Another question that must be posed is what makes the best story? Is it the straightforward information or the juicy gossip? The journalists that pick the information side are run over by the gossips who will go to any length to get/make and interesting story and they hardly ever see punishment for their violation of ethics.
As much as the internet has educated us I also think that it has estranged us in ways and destroyed all privacy barriers. I would hope that most people are smart enough to realize that the Internet is public media and everyone has access to it but more often than not we are not able to control what information the internet has on us because we did not put it there. Although information on the internet is public I do not think that people deserve to be stalked on sites like Facebook, My Space, etc. but then again maybe I am being too idealistic.
I, too, agree with Betsy when she says," I agree with a-dubs' point about journalists' responsibility. I also think, based on other of Gannett's 'Principles of Ethical Conduct for Newsrooms,' that it is very important to print only material that is known to be true, and to keep statements in context." In her post, she goes on to say that information from sources such as Facebook and MySpace can easily be taken out of context to create a meaning entirely unintended by the author. She also points out that the author may not even be who she says she is. The subject is clearly chock-full of gray area.
One way of looking at Internet content is that just because a piece of information exists on the Internet does not mean it is accurate, written in earnest or even useful. Journalists are charged with deciphering facts and information in an ethically responsible manner in order to educate or inform their readers. They are not, however, charged with presenting titillating personal factoids in the public realm.
I think the big distinguishing factor here is that while the Internet and all the information on it (including Facebook profiles, etc.) is "public" domain in terms of use and consumption (web content is created and published under the assumption that it will exist in open view), it is not necessarily "public" in the sense that it may not "concern the people as a whole."
An example to clarify: while my personal photos, conversations among friends and interests are posted on my Facebook profile, I wouldn't say that those items "concern the people as a whole" and therefore should not be published in a NYT article without my permission or unless I'm personally involved in a pressing public affairs issue in which case personal or background information from my Facebook profile could be telling.
I think we can all agree there is a huge amount of gray area within the issue of public vs. private, so it will be interesting to see how journalistic standards and ethics continue to evolve to keep up with the ever-changing media landscape.
People should understand that the Web is public domain and act accordingly—don’t spout out personal information that could be used against you. For example, this past spring the University of Minnesota-Duluth asked its athletes to stop using social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace in order to deter people from uncovering pictures of athletes drinking underage and behaving inappropriately.
I agree with Andrew that the press has responsibility to report on personal information published on the Web that is in the public’s best interest to be aware of. The Siebert chapters discuss the Social Responsibility Theory, the idea that the press is responsible for carrying out certain essential functions of mass communication in society. One of the functions of the press is to enlighten the public. And if this enlightenment stems from something uncovered on the Web? So what? Journalists have the freedom to use relevant information from wherever they see fit.
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