Developing an Ethics Framework for Online Journalists
Roll up your sleeves and get ready to help shape an ethics framework for online journalists, bloggers and citizen journalists!
We're hosting a moderated discussion between a group of panelists and audience members outlining a handful of the ethical conundrums we all face today. In this special town hall-style session, the audience will have as much input as our panelists.
After about 45 minutes of discussion, we will hone in on five bullet points to develop as a starting point for an ethics framework. A few weeks before the conference, an ethics wiki will launch, and we'll invite you to contribute, network and weigh in with your own thoughts.
(Here it is! Visit the wiki, http://www.onlineethicswiki.com/, before and after the conference to take part in the discussion.)
Some of the key issues we'll discuss:
- As the crowded media landscape becomes even moreso with the growth of bloggers and citizen journalists, how are we all handling ethical dilemmas? One point to consider – this session is not meant to be a finger-pointing exercise. In order to create any real framework, we must accept that online journalists, bloggers and citizen journalists operate under the same “media” umbrella.
- But, as we have seen numerous times during the past year, readers have been left scratching their heads. The Eliot Spitzer story broke on the New York Times Web site with a single, anonymous source, but spread like cyber wildfire. And, a citizen journalist for Huffington Post’s “Off The Bus” project broke the “bittergate” story but questions about conflict of interest and identification swirled around how she obtained that information.
- Are journalism ethics being called more into question today than in the past? How can we help shape a framework that anyone working in media can consult when they run into an ethical dilemma?
