No question. Richard Ruelas had a scoop. Did he go too far to get it? Ruelas was checking a report that a well-known set of quadruplets had been hospitalized, possibly suffering from abuse.

At the hospital, officials would not say whether they were treating any of the children. Ruelas went to the hospital chapel to look for family members. The chapel was empty.

But a peek at the book where pSeople write their prayer intentions gave him the information he needed: The grieving grandmother had inscribed a prayer for one of the children.

“My editor danced around the newsroom,” Ruelas said. “I had extreme reservations.”

The grandmother’s private words gave The Arizona Republic in Phoenix confirmation for a story the next day. A few days later, the newspaper quoted her entry in a follow-up, providing a detail no one else had reported.

Ruelas said he and his editors did not dwell on the ethical question: how to balance the news value of the information with the grandmother’s privacy. “I couldn’t quantify why I was feeling so queasy,” Ruelas said.

The public and the family did not complain about publication of the entry after the story appeared in summer 1998.

Still, Ruelas wishes the newspaper had done otherwise or at least talked more about whether divulging the grandmother’s prayer was an essential part of the story.

“Now we would have run it through a more stringent ethical wringer” and probably thought longer and harder about making public “what most people would consider a private conversation,” said Ruelas, a columnist for The Arizona Republic.

Ruelas said two things have changed. He has become more conscious of the need to practice ethical decision-making in his daily work. He said a workshop on ethics at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies helped him “start thinking actively about ethics” in ways that evolve as his work does. Second, ethical decision-making became a more routine part of the discussion in his newsroom as part of a daily morning critique of the paper by staff members.

“That was a turning point. That did help us get very familiar to the vocabulary, to be able to discuss what are often heated issues civilly with each other.

“The main difference has been just the awareness, being able to think these things through. It’s become more part of the conversation,” Ruelas said. “It’s almost like learning a foreign language. If you don’t use it, it goes away.”

Ruelas attributes ethical lapses, including those of his own newspaper, to a failure to anticipate problems and discuss and clarify standards in advance.

“In the conference room, it’s easy to say we wouldn’t run that photo. When we have the photo and we’re under pressure of deadline, we just plain do.”

PUBLIC VIEW A 1998 survey for ASNE of 3,000 Americans found the public is skeptical of the motives of newspaper journalists: 85 percent believe newspapers frequently overdramatize some news stories just to sell more papers. 48 percent see misleading or “hype” headlines in their newspaper at least once a week. 78 percent think journalists enjoy reporting on the personal failings of politicians and public figures. 22 percent believe the public has lost confidence in the press because of sensationalistic coverage; another 12 percent blame inaccuracies and the desire to be first with the story; 9 percent cite overreporting on the personal lives of public figures. 28 percent think journalists will tone down a story if they think it will hurt the lives of the people they’re reporting about. 1

Demonstrate character

Decisions journalists make every day speak to the character of their newspaper.

The public notices whether the newspaper consistently shows respect for people. The public also notices whether the practices reflected in the newspaper over time demonstrate a commitment to the high-minded values journalists often cite in defending press freedoms.

Careful, fair and consistent decision-making on sensitive stories is a major part of the credibility picture. As Perry Morgan, the late The Virginian-Pilot newspaper publisher, told Sandy Rowe when the project started: Credibility is “about character.”

Journalistic character can mix respect and restraint with aggressive reporting and a willingness to go against the public grain. It is important to create a newsroom culture that is generous in its compassion and rigorous in choosing its shots.

Readers “want a sense of character. They want their newspaper to stand for something,” said Jack Fuller, president of Tribune Publishing Co. “It begins with honesty and the related news values. But it also may include such qualities as compassion, tough-mindedness, moral courage and even perhaps a bit of stubbornness. A little civility would be welcome these days, too.”2

Public is suspicious

The public has clear concerns about the character and motives of newspapers and other media — about sensationalism and distortion, about intrusiveness and lack of respect for privacy, about whether their primary accountability is to the public or to the market and about whether newspapers too often sacrifice their stated principles to maintain a professional profile.

Eight in 10 Americans believe “journalists chase sensational stories because they think it’ll sell newspapers, not because they think it’s important news,” according to a 1998 for the Journalism Credibility Project.

The study also concluded that there is a “fundamental conflict between the news values that journalists consider ‘second nature’ and the values held by the majority of the public,” especially when it comes to potential harm to innocent people who are thrust into the news.

For example, three out of four people said editors should respect a family’s wish to keep the story of a child’s fatal accident out of the newspaper. Nearly nine in 10 said the names of suspects should not be published until formal charges are filed.

The research also highlighted the use of anonymous sources: Nearly eight in 10 people are concerned about their use; nearly half prefer a story that relied on anonymous sources not appear at all.3

There is no question that abuses of other media influence public views about newspapers. But print journalism has had its own high-profile ethics problems, from made-up sources and stories to stock purchases by journalists using information not available to the public.

Beyond those problems, the public may well find validation for its concerns in small choices a newspaper makes every day about what stories to pursue, what headlines to write, what photos to use and how to present it all.

GETTING STARTED

Four subjects of concern surface repeatedly when the public talks about newspaper credibility:

Avoid sensationalistic coverage

Use public and newsroom input to determine what aspects of the newspaper’s coverage raise concerns about sensationalism. Test routine practice against the journalistic goals. A problem may be something as minor as a format that calls for large, bold headlines no matter what the story. Or it may be something as significant as a tendency to run nearly every crime story on the Metro cover. Crime coverage, polarizing political coverage and the prominence given celebrity news often play into public perceptions about sensationalism.

Show respect

Be willing and ready to consider alternatives in sensitive situations; don’t assume that you ultimately will have to sacrifice journalistic principles to lessen the harm. A deliberate process of making ethical decisions is critical. Publishing explanatory notes about difficult decisions and seeking public reaction will test and refine newsroom thinking as well as helping readers understand.

Limit anonymous sources

Make protecting in print the identities of sources, especially powerful officials, a rare practice. Examine proposed exceptions to make sure they are truly necessary based on public interest, not competitive fervor. Explain to readers why the source cannot be identified and why the editors believe the story is reliable and of such strong public interest that it could not wait for more checking.

Maintain independence

Educate the newspaper’s owners and business managers about journalism values and credibility’s importance to a newspaper’s bottom line. Set forth clear newsroom standards for conflict of interest situations, including how the newspaper will cover activities of its corporate owner. Explain each situation — and its ethics — to readers.

MOVING FROM PHILOSOPHY TO PRACTICE

AVOID SENSATIONALISTIC COVERAGE

“Are we reporting on crime in a way that is accurate and fair? Or are we going for what we know is the juicy story?” Geneva Overholser The Washington Post Writers Group

To people in newsrooms, sensationalism is the stuff of tabloids. Screaming headlines that turn out to have little to do with the story. Photographs that seem to show people at their worst. Titillating personal details that are not relevant to the matter at hand. Quotes and unnamed sources we think might be made up. Nonstop reporting and rehashing on a dramatic, but relatively inconsequential, story.

Where newsrooms see the lapses of other media, however, a more critical public sees ongoing problems that reflect deeply on the credibility of their newspaper. At its root, sensationalism is a failure to reflect the values newspaper journalists insist distinguish their work: accuracy, fairness and concern for the public.

Coverage of crime and public affairs, two staples of the daily news report, often pose problems.

Examine crime coverage

“When we do overconcentrate on crime, we actually present a warped picture,” said Geneva Overholser, a member of the faculty at the Missouri School of Journalism and syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. “Are we reporting on crime in a way that is accurate and fair? Or are we going for what we know is the juicy story?”

QUESTIONS

How often do you or your staff discuss journalism ethics and values?

What issues do you usually discuss: sensationalism, privacy, business influences?

What issues do you think your staff would like to discuss?

What would be a good setting for such discussions: the daily news meeting, staff committees, brown bag lunches, formal training sessions?

Who on your staff would lead these discussions? What training and resources might this person need?

Do members of your staff bring ethical concerns into daily discussions of story and photo selection and play?

How can you encourage that? What recent or ongoing coverage posed ethical challenges that might be worth discussing with your staff?

Nonsensationalistic crime coverage requires that journalists report trends, explanations and context as thoroughly as they do random incidents of violence or the bizarre.

RESOURCES The Committee of Concerned Journalists and the Project for Journalism Excellence have conducted numerous studies of journalistic story framing and sourcing, including several surveys of sourcing in reports on the Clinton sex scandal. The studies are available at www.journalism.org, click on “publications and research.”

The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer’s “Taking Back Our Neighborhoods” project in 1994 sought to look at crime through the eyes of residents of high-crime areas and to examine what they said they needed to improve their neighborhoods.

“We decided go beyond traditional ways we had approached crime problems,” said Fannie Flono, associate editor. “We decided we would have a team of reporters who would spend some time in those communities.”

Flono said the effort treated residents as important sources for defining problems and identifying solutions in much the way most reporting goes to experts and officials for answers.

The Oregonian in 1999 reorganized its crime coverage to reduce sensationalism. It redefined several crime beats, began devoting more time to covering issues and less time chasing police sirens, and it set a higher threshold for prominent display of random incidents of crime.

“Our beats are now structured to be less reactive and more topical — including coverage of property crime and white-collar crime — which affects many people but got little attention before. We still cover breaking news but put it in context and play it at a volume that is less alarmist,” said Susan Gage, crime team leader.4

Sensationalism also plays out in the way journalists tend to frame stories around conflict, drama and extremes.

See DIscussion Guide 8

See Discussion Guide 15

QUESTIONS

How often do crime stories appear on section covers in your newspapers?

What types of crime stories usually appear on section covers?

What sources are quoted in these stories?

Looking at an example of a crime story from Page One or the local cover: Does it reflect a significant crime problem in your community? How might your newspaper have added context to let readers know whether it reflects a widespread problem or a one-time event?

What are the biggest crime problems in your community?

Is your newspaper missing certain crime stories that have a big impact on people but aren't very sexy?

“The press has a decided tendency to present the news through a combative lens. Three narrative frames — conflict, winners and losers, and revealing wrong- doing — accounted for 30 percent of all stories, twice the number of straight news accounts,” the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Princeton Survey Research Associates found in a 1999 survey of the front pages of three national and four regional newspapers.5

Conflict isn’t the only story

“Compelling stories always seem to have at their core an extreme or a position that is kind of isolated from the norm. It is important that we acknowledge that we have a bent toward looking at things in more extreme ways than most people.” Fannie Flono The Charlotte Observer

Nowhere is conflict framing more apparent than in coverage of public affairs.

Members of the public often complain that journalists are too quick to highlight conflict or the most strident voices in reporting public discussions. Many newspapers recognized this in the past decade and applied the lesson to campaign coverage with more emphasis on issues and less on the tactics of campaigns, usually as part of a broader civic journalism effort that paid more attention to public perspectives.

Practices of civic journalism, which attempt to make reporting more authentic and meaningful to the public, do not typically have avoiding sensationalism as a stated goal. However, it is a significant byproduct.

Journalists who are taught that conflict makes for the stories on which the newspaper places value will find it every time. But the extreme assertions of partisans strike people who are looking at the issue from the middle as simplistic and sensationalistic.

A survey by The Charlotte Observer in 1996 hinted at the link after a dispute erupted over scheduled performances of the play “Angels in America.”

Some people objected loudly to the play’s nudity, while the play’s organizers insisted they had a right to go ahead.

QUESTIONS

What are some of the typical ways your newspaper frames stories about public affairs (e.g. straight news, conflict)?

How often does your newspaper rely on those who come forward to speak publicly about public affairs issues?

How often do these sources tend to represent views on the far sides of the issues?

How often does your newspaper find sources who are affected but have not come forward?

When has your newspaper succeeded in reporting on perspectives from the "vast middle"?

When could you have done a better job?

To get beyond the extreme views, the newspaper solicited and published numerous letters from the public and conducted a poll.

The poll showed that eight in 10 people thought the performances should be allowed, although many said they found the play objectionable and would not attend themselves. Seven in 10 said the issue as presented by the two sides of the spectrum had been “blown out of proportion.”6

“Compelling stories always seem to have at their core an extreme or a position that is kind of isolated from the norm,” Flono said. “It is important that we acknowledge that we have a bent toward looking at things in more extreme ways than most people.”

Guiding Principles for the Journalist

The Gazette in Colorado Springs during the tenure of Editor Steven A. Smith also experimented with models for covering political issues from the middle.

A four-part series about the public schools ran against the backdrop of a tax vote in 1996.

RESOURCES The Poynter Institute for Media Studies offers tips on ethics on its Web site. Go to http://www.poynter.org/dj/tips/index.htm and look under “Ethical Guidelines.” The American Society of Newspaper Editors Web site contains links to codes of ethics of many news organizations. Go to http://www.asne.org/ideas/codes/codes.htm. The Committee of Concerned Journalists’ Statement of Concern is on the organization’s Web site at www.journ-alism.org/ccj/about/statement.html. The Associated Press Managing Editors Code of Ethics is available at apme.com/about/code_ethics.shtml.

The series included the pros and cons from the campaigns. But it highlighted the views of parents the first day, students the second day, teachers the third day and taxpayers without children on the fourth day. It appeared each day across the top of the front page.

Wendy Y. Lawton, one of two reporters who worked on the series, said it was an opportunity to turn down the volume on campaign advocates and let other voices come forward. It also presented an opportunity to explore how people’s experiences and perceptions about schools shaped their views on the tax vote at hand. Lawton stressed that the series took more time to report and write than a typical politics pro-con story.

The series tried to go “beyond what is easy to see,” Lawton said. “We could have covered the need. We could have covered the critics. That’s in there, but it’s in a different form.”

Dennis Hetzel, editor and publisher of the York Daily Record in York, Pa., makes conflict framing a regular part of the newsroom discussion.

“My ‘what makes something newsworthy’ talk involves going over seven elements of news” from “The Art of Editing,” Hetzel said. “I particularly talk about the seventh element, which is conflict, to make the point that conflict is a significant element of news but it’s not the only element of news.7

“I use an example of a school board that votes unanimously without debate to implement a new reading program and then votes 4-3 to buy a new dump truck. What’s more newsworthy, based on those facts? It clearly should be the reading program. Many young journalists pick the dump truck, however.

“We also can defend our coverage of conflict,” Hetzel said. “We don’t need to be ashamed that we think conflict is an important element of our news coverage, so long as we don’t exalt it too much over the other elements.”

Put celebrity stories in their place

Readers also judge their newspaper’s character by the emphasis it places on celebrity stories.

Newsroom debate on celebrity news often focuses on the argument that the media are just giving the public what it wants. It may be, however, that celebrity news is not something the public wants a lot of in its local newspaper.

Fuller of Tribune Publishing Co. suggests that serious news is the franchise of newspapers and that the public understands that.

“There is every reason to think that readers want their newspapers to know the difference between the significant and the trivial. It is no coincidence that the surviving or predominant newspaper in most large metropolitan areas — The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer — has been the more serious newspaper.”8

Placing the celebrity items in a limited, designated space separate from significant news may be the best way to offer the information to readers who want it without suggesting it’s a major part of the newspaper’s mission.

It also may be valuable to bring the character of the newspaper into newsroom decision-making about play of celebrity stories. Like crime stories, celebrity stories have a way of gravitating to section covers. Often they are dramatic stories, they may appear to illustrate a trend or they are the talk of the town — all legitimate arguments for prominent display. But that bent should be tested against the character traits the newspaper wants to present to the public, and that often will argue for restraint.

SHOW RESPECT

See Discussion Guide 3

See Discussion Guide 10

See Discussion Guide 11

Ruelas, a columnist for The Arizona Republic, started out at a wire service.

One difference he’s noticed: Newspapers, by virtue of their place in the community, have more immediate accountability.

QUESTIONS

Bob Steele, senior faculty and ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, recommends asking good questions to make good ethical decisions. Here is Steele's list:

What do I know? What do I need to know?

What is my journalistic purpose?

What are my ethical concerns?

What organizational policies and professional guidelines should I consider?

How can I include other people, with different perspectives and diverse idea, in the decision-making process?

Who are the stakeholders -- Those affected by my decision? What are their motivations? Which are legitimate?

What if the roles were reversed? How would I feel if I were in the shoes of one of the stakeholders?

What are the possible consequences of my actions? Short-term? Long-term?

What are my alternatives to maximize my truth-telling responsibility and minimize harm?

Can I clearly and full justify my thinking and my decision? To my colleagues? To stakeholders? To the public?

“You get used to that comfortable feeling of never having to face your audience,” Ruelas said. “It does make you better if you have to be honest with folks you’re writing about.”

Journalists who know they will have to explain their actions to the subjects of their stories — and to their readers — will do a better job of balancing values that sometimes compete.

Bob Steele, senior faculty and ethics group leader at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, encourages newsroom leaders to make sure the notion of minimizing harm is part of the discussion whenever the staff is working on a potentially sensitive story.

That doesn’t necessarily mean backing away from stories because they may hurt people.

“The reason we contact victims or families of victims is to make sure we get the story factually accurate, the context authentic, and that we are fair to those individuals who have already been harmed in some way,” Steele said.

“It is inescapable that we are, in our journalistic role, intrusive on people who have suffered in some way,” Steele said. “Our obligation is to minimize any further harm that comes with our professional intrusion.”

QUESTIONS

How does your staff identify people who have a stake in a story?

What steps do your reporters, editors, and photographers take to make sure they understand the perspectives of these stakeholders?

To whom does your staff talk to to bring independent expertise (e.g. suicideologists, victims advocates, child protection workers) to discussions about vulnerable people?

How does your staff bring independent expertise and stakeholder concerns into the newsroom decision-making process?

What steps does your staff take to balance potential harm against the news value of a story?

What steps does your staff take to identify multiple alternatives to achieve an appropriate balance?

What's a good recent example where your staff succeeded in considering a full range of perspectives?

What's a recent case where you could have done more?

Ethics at the Shelby Star

Journalists may fear an emphasis on potential impact will lead to newspapers backing away from vital stories for fear of offending the public or the subjects of stories.

Far from it. Good ethical decision-making can help journalists reduce harm and eliminate unnecessary harm. It also can put journalists on surer footing when they know that telling the story will have a negative impact.

See Discussion Guide 12

See Discussion Guide 13

TIPS Journalists need to be particularly sensitive about publishing photos that show people in private settings or may put them in an unflattering light. When photos in private settings (funerals, for example) are necessary to tell the story, they should run. Explaining in the caption or an editor’s note that the photographer had permission to take the pictures may answer inevitable reader concerns about intrusiveness. The love of a good image — not journalistic value — may be the driving force in publishing an unflattering photo. Good ethical decision making in the newsroom can challenge that and suggest alternatives.

Photos raise concerns

As the most prominent piece of any newspaper package, photos often are hot buttons for public concerns about sensitivity and intrusion.

The drama, emotion and technical quality of photos often is the determinant of which ones are published. But editors concerned about credibility are paying more attention to community values and setting increasingly high standards.

“The fundamental test for me is: What is the journalistic purpose of the photo? Is the information so powerful that it has to see print?’” said Peter Bhatia, executive editor of The Oregonian.

Steele recommends that journalists identify tricky areas ahead of time and work through alternatives before deadline looms.

Editors also need to pay special attention when their staffs are dealing with victims of crime or disaster, children and teen-agers, people who cannot speak for themselves, people whose language or culture may limit their ability to understand the impact of being in the newspaper, and people at the center of stories that hinge on personal details about them.

QUESTIONS

When do discussions of journalism ethics most often take place in your newsroom?

Who initiates them?

Who is involved?

Who is not? Why not?

What barriers exist in your newsroom to thoughtful, constructive ethical discussions (e.g. physical barriers, cultural norms, leadership styles)?

What can top editors do to remove some of these barriers?

Do your editors coach ethics with the same skill and intensity as they coach reporting and writing?

What can you do to help your editors become better ethics coaches?

Sarasota's Point / Counterpoint

Be prepared to explain

Readers often are quick to notice when the newspaper uses information or photos that seem needlessly intrusive, offensive or violent. Editors may prevent readers from thinking the worst with explanations that run the day of publication or in a follow-up column.

TIPS To reduce reliance on unnamed sources: Develop guidelines and use them. Make sure exceptions reflect a desire to serve the public interest and are not primarily a back door to beating the competition with information that can be had with a little more digging. Explain in print in clear terms. Newspapers owe an explanation when they veer from standard practice. Knowing beforehand that it will have to be explained to the public may challenge and strengthen the decision-making process. Think as if you have a finite number of opportunities to use anonymous stories. Don’t squander them. Hold all copy in the paper to the same standard, whether it’s produced by local news reporters, material from the wire that may need extra editing, or gossip in a people column.

Frequently, journalists have legitimate reasons for publishing such material. But the public may not readily understand those reasons.

“I think it is particularly important for us to anticipate and discuss the consequences and criticism we are likely to encounter when we publish sensitive stories and photographs,” said Chris Peck, editor of The Spokesman-Review, which uses a written sensitive story protocol.

More resources at this link

LIMIT ANONYMOUS SOURCES

As the story of the Clinton sex scandal was breaking in 1998, it was hard for many readers — and quite a few journalists — to tell what was fact, what was rumor and what was opinion couched as fact.

Was there a stained dress or not? Were journalists protecting Kenneth Starr and the White House spinners or not? Did reporters fail to report some public officials were lying when they proclaimed they had not given information to the press?

See Discussion Guide 9

A large percentage of the early 1998 reporting on the scandal had no sourcing, the Committee of Concerned Journalists reported.11 Subsequent studies by the committee raised serious questions about whether the coverage — including heavy reliance on anonymous sources — had failed to meet basic standards of accuracy, verification and fairness.12

It appears that journalists put their core values — independence, fairness and accuracy — second to professional prestige. The core values would have led them to the story. But they wanted to be first with the detail of the day. So they relied heavily on anonymous sources in a politically charged situation when no source could be taken at face value.

QUESTIONS

What are your guidelines for limiting use of anonymous sources?

Does everyone on your staff understand them and practice them?

Are they sufficient?

What steps does your staff take to bring wire copy into conformance with the standards of your local reporting?

That’s not to suggest there is no place for anonymous sources on the news pages. But journalism, particularly from the nation’s capital, has considerably cheapened the gold standard of The Washington Post’s Watergate reporting in the 1970s.

In 1998, The Cincinnati Enquirer’s expose of Chiquita Brands International — supposedly based on information from an anonymous source — turned out to be based on voice-mails a reporter accessed illegally.

PUBLIC VIEW A survey in 1998 showed 50 percent of the public believe newspapers allow advertiser’s interests to influence news decisions.13 A 1998 national survey found that 77 percent of the public are concerned about the credibility of stories that quote unidentified sources.14

Since then, the Gannett Co., which owns the Enquirer, has upgraded its ethics guidelines. The new guidelines on anonymous sources say editors may need to meet an anonymous source and assess credibility before publication.

“Hold editors as well as reporters accountable when unnamed sources are used,” the Gannett guidelines state. “When a significant story to be published relies on a source who will not be named, it is the responsibility of the senior news executive to confirm the identity of the source and to review the information provided. This may require the editor to meet the source.”

Geneva Overholser thinks overuse of anonymous sources undermines press credibility and the political debate.

“It has a corrosive effect when people are able to say things without having to take responsibility,” Overholser said.

MAINTAIN INDEPENDENCE

The culture of journalism has changed.

It is not unusual to find top-rate journalists discussing how to attract more readers as often as they discuss what makes good journalism. It is not unusual to find newsroom staff members blurring the line between the market the newspaper targets and the community it seeks to serve. And it is not unusual for a 30 percent profit margin to matter more than the resources needed to cover a significant story.

QUESTIONS

What are the business values that guide your newspaper?

What are the journalism values?

Where are the business and journalism values consistent?

Where is there tension and conflict?

How can you reconcile them?

What guidelines do you have or should have to honor business and journalism values?

High-profile attempts to vault the wall between news content and business interests, such as the Los Angeles Times/Staples scandal, have caused loud explosions that may help alert media’s corporate captains to the vital link between journalistic credibility and marketability.

The Tribune Co. has developed a notable model for explaining and demonstrating newsroom decision-making and ethics to its business executives.

One goal of the program is to introduce executives to journalism values, said Howard Tyner, senior vice president and editor. “But also to the idea that there’s not a book on the shelf behind any editor’s desk that has the answers to all the questions that come up on any given day. Not even close.

“Much of what goes into a newspaper is a result of many people talking from a sort of bedrock position where we have certain basic values that we apply to the news,” he said. “We emphasize the decision-making part and how important the values are.”

Values for Business

“Much of what goes into a newspaper is a result of many people talking from a sort of bedrock position where we have certain basic values that we apply to the news. We emphasize the decision-making part and how important the values are.” Howard Tyner The Tribune Co.

Tyner said it’s also important to keep in mind that executives do not typically have much exposure to the First Amendment idealism of journalists. As a result of this gap, journalists often come off as arrogant, as being “preachy and unrealistic.”

“The Staples Center fiasco continues to hover over the newspaper industry like a ghost at a banquet, a routinely invoked object lesson in what can happen when the people in charge of a news organization lose touch with legitimate news values.”15 Don Wycliff Chicago Tribune

Tyner said the program, modeled after one sponsored by Belo Corp., contains four parts:

• Ethics. Newsroom editors present a session on how they make ethical decisions. At one session, for example, a group including a photo editor and an international editor walked through their efforts to be fair in selecting photographs of Israeli-Palestinian clashes.
• Newsroom operations. Staff members explain how they covered a specific story. At one session, a reporter, a national editor, a news editor, a copy editor and a photo editor reviewed their roles in covering Election Day in November 2000.
• Editorial board. Business executives listen in on an editorial board discussion.
• News judgment. The executives divide into smaller groups with a few pages of story budgets, some photos and graphics. Their assignment is to decide what should appear on Page One.

The response? Enthusiastic. “Executives say things like ‘I never dreamt that this was how you did the things you do,’ ‘I will always look at the newspaper differently,’” Tyner said.

“I think a lot depends on the quality of the people who put it together. I think that you want to be sure that you have discussion leaders who are very firmly grounded and can convincingly articulate what they’re doing and why they do it and link it to values,” Tyner said.

The Tribune program offers a model for educating the business side.

Editors also need to develop models for educating the journalism side.

Reid Ashe, publisher of The Tampa Tribune, suggests editors can meet the challenges of the corporate culture without automatically sacrificing their journalistic principles.

QUESTIONS

How do you let readers know about your newspaper's values and attention to journalism ethics?

How can you air complaints from readers who say your newspaper doesn't always measure up? How can you respond?

How can you tell readers about good decisions?

“Gone is the day — if it ever existed — when editors could do their jobs in splendid isolation. Today we’ve got to mix it up with the mercenaries,” Ashe said.

This formula for conflict is not all bad.

“Successful mediators have a formula for dealing with conflict. They begin by establishing agreement on values,” Ashe said. “Editors and business-side executives should do the same. We’ve got to tell the truth. We’ve got to attract readers, or advertising will have no value. We’ve got to earn the community’s trust, as well as the readers’. We’ve got to be an independent force but with a moral gyroscope. We’ve got to be reliable — for our service as well as our content.”16

It is important that newsroom leaders make clear their standards and guidelines for newsroom interaction with the business side and disclose when they make exceptions.

Editors also need to check regularly with their newsrooms to make sure staff members are finding a balance, neither assuming they have to bow to business or marketing interests nor resisting business concerns for the sake of resisting.

“The only way to really protect our credibility is to hold ourselves accountable to the public. After all, credibility isn’t about what we think; it’s about whether readers believe us.” Geneva Overholser The Washington Post Writers Group

Part of that is making sure the newsroom differentiates between journalistic principle and newsroom preference.

Overholser has noted, for example, that the idea of placing ads on Page One has generated loud concern in newspaper circles. But greater threats to credibility, Overholser said, seem to have quiet acceptance. One is the increasing practice of publishing ads that could be mistaken for news stories. Another is the failure of media to report on themselves as businesses.

“And more than a few of us pull punches when it comes to reporting something our owners and our advertisers might not like,” she said.17

As the media landscape becomes more and more diverse and confusing, newspapers have an opportunity to reclaim their traditional role as journalistic bedrock. That is a bottom-line value newspaper owners are more likely to embrace.

That can happen only if newsroom leaders put credibility on a par with speed, competitiveness and drama every day.

Whether the issue is accuracy, fairness, respect for privacy or even basic civility with people who contact the newspaper, the public ultimately will decide whether a newspaper is succeeding — both as a reliable source and as one that will sell.

That may be the most crucial element of journalistic credibility: a willingness to be accountable to the public day in and day out.

Overholser put it this way:

“The only way to really protect our credibility is to hold ourselves accountable to the public. After all, credibility isn’t about what we think; it’s about whether readers believe us.”18

Discussion guides Several guides in Chapter 6 relate to this chapter: Guide 3 — “Grieving over news” Guide 8 — Powerful images Guide 9 — False report on Clinton Guide 10 — A missing child Guide 11 — Naming a rape victim Guide 12 — “Heart without a home” Guide 13 — Transplant donor Guide 14 — “Miracle match” Guide 15 — Death of a boy Guide 16 — LA Times/Staples Center Guide 17 — Advertising asks for help RESOURCES Chapter 5 contains additional resources for this chapter: Contacts and publications The Spokesman-Review’s sensitive story protocol

NOTES

1. Urban, pp. 21, 59, 61.

2. Fuller, p. 227.

3. Urban, pp. 35, 37, 54, 55.

4. Journalism Credibility Project, p. 40.

5. Project for Excellence in Journalism and Princeton Survey Research Associates, “Framing the News — The Triggers, Frames, and Messages in Newspaper Coverage,” 1999.

6. “Poll: Don’t Clip Wings of Angels,” The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, March 24, 1996.

7. Floyd K. Baskette et al, The Art of Editing, Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1982, p. 19.

8. Fuller, p. 118.

9. Janet Weaver, “Elian Photos Speak a Thousand Words. Contrasting Images Tell Tale of Tear and Elation,” Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, April 30, 2000.

10. Rosemary Armao, “Elian Photos Speak a Thousand Words. Image of Armed Agent Too Powerful to Ignore,” Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, April 30, 2000.

11. Committee of Concerned Journalists and Princeton Survey Research Associates, Feb. 18, 1998.

12. Committee of Concerned Journalists and Princeton Survey Research Associates, March 27, 1998 and Oct. 20, 1998

13. Urban, p. 44.

14. Urban, p. 21.

15. Don Wycliff, public editor, “Executive Decisions in Putting Out a Newspaper,” Chicago Tribune, Nov. 30, 2000.

16. Reid Ashe, “The way to get more resources: Serve readers better,” Embracing Journalism’s Real Value: Building the Business, Protecting the Principles, The Poynter Institute, January 2001, p.4.

17. Geneva Overholser, “Front-Page Ads and Other Supposed Threats to Credibility,” Columbia Journalism Review, September/October 2000.

18. Ibid.