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Social Media
How to Defend Yourself Against Facial Recognition Technology
Facial recognition technology is now just about everywhere we are. It's in our phones, social networks, and media management, and this itself carries vast implications. (See this post about how the technology works, where it is, and how legislators and regulators are reacting to it.) But it's also increasingly used by law enforcement and for surveillance of "public" spaces, as...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #50: Facebook Face-Plant; Craig Newmark + Poynter; Crowdfunding Bible
Welcome to the 50th episode of the Mediatwits podcast, with Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali as co-hosts. The joy of the Facebook IPO was quickly replaced with disdain as the stock nosedived and lawsuits ensued. We run down the headlines, including the New Orleans Times-Picayune and Oregon Daily Emerald killing daily print editions for thrice- and twice-weekly editions, respectively....
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #42: SXSW Special: Homeless Hotspots; Ambient Apps, CNN/Mashable?
Welcome to the 42nd episode of the Mediatwits podcast, this time with Mark Glaser and the Rachel Sklar as co-hosts. Sklar is a writer and social entrepreneur, and is filling in for Rafat Ali. This week is a special episode dedicated to all things South by Southwest (SXSW), the media confab covering technology, music and film down in Austin, Texas.
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Ethics
3 Laws for Journalists in a Data-Saturated World
At the Cyberspace Conference in London in November, Igor Shchegolev, the Russian minister of communications and mass media, referred to sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human...
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Business
Tear Down the Wall Between Business and Editorial!
For too long, reporters and editors have been unaware, even hostile to the business sides of their organizations. Those attitudes have helped push the news industry into its current dire state. And that's why I say: Tear down the wall between business and editorial. Before you start sharpening your pitchforks, hear me out. I'm not proposing a free-for-all money-grab that...
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Ethics
Juan Williams, Lisa Simeone and Public Media's Quest for Integrity
Trust "is perhaps the most important asset public broadcasting carries forward into evolving public media future," writes Byron Knight. Knight should know. He's had a long career in public broadcasting. Now, he is co-director of the Editorial Integrity for Public Media Project, a ground-breaking attempt to define public media's principles for a digital age. Leading public broadcasters, NPR, PBS, and...
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Philosophy
TrueTies Activist Demands Transparency Without Transparency
This piece originally appeared in the Washington Examiner It is reprinted here with permission. An Op-Ed appeared earlier this month on PBS MediaShift that seemed to describe a civic-minded endeavor aimed at increasing awareness of who on the nation's editorial commentary pages was trying to influence public opinion. "Every day, Americans read the opinion and commentary of seemingly impartial 'experts'...
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Ethics
TrueTies.Org Wants to Increase Transparency on the Op-Ed Page
The following is a guest opinion from Gabe Elsner of The Checks and Balances Project, which recently launched a new project aimed at increasing transparency at news outlets. Every day, Americans read the opinion and commentary of seemingly impartial "experts" from think tanks on critical subjects in the pages of the nation's newspapers. What these readers don't know is that...
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Ethics
Rethinking Journalism Ethics, Objectivity in the Age of Social Media
In response to the rapidly changing media environment, many schools and academic programs are offering novel approaches to journalism education. This seismic change creates tensions within programs, especially when it comes to how to teach ethics for this increasingly mixed media. In an earlier column, I put forward some principles for teaching ethics amid this media revolution. But these principles...
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Guides
Your Guide to the U.K. Phone-Hacking Scandal (or 'Hackgate')
From time to time, we provide an overview of one broad MediaShift topic, annotated with online resources and plenty of tips. The idea is to help you understand the topic, learn the jargon, and take action. We've previously covered Twitter, local watchdog news sites, and Net neutrality, among other topics. This week MediaShift U.K. correspondent Tristan Stewart-Robertson looks at the...
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Ethics
WikiLeaks and the Power of Patriotism
A narrow patriotism -- the psychological equivalent of a knee jerk -- is an under-recognized force in modern journalism ethics. It distorts our thinking about the role of journalism as soon as journalists offend national pride and whistleblowers dare to reveal secrets. Narrow patriotism turns practitioners of a free press into scolding censors. Suddenly, independent journalists become dastardly law breakers....
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MagazineShift
The Ethics of Digital Magazine Advertising
In my recent discussions with magazine editors, executives and experts, I've heard a lot about how magazines will integrate new forms of advertising, and "monetization" opportunities, into their digital content. From digital editions to social media to mobile apps, magazines are exploring a variety of ways to provide advertisers with novel opportunities to reach audiences, just as they have in...
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World View
Navigating Media Ethics and Censorship in Dubai
Around the world, dozens of organizations, from Freedom House to Reporters Without Borders, advance the ideal of a free press and a free citizenry. The ideal suggests there is one type of free press to be secured globally: the Western model of a constitutionally protected free press. What stands over and against the free press? The typical examples are the...
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Public MediaShift
How to Avoid Ethical Snags in Non-Profit Journalism
The nature of non-profit journalism invites ethical dilemmas. Over the past few years, dozens of centers of investigative journalism and non-profit websites have been started using money from foundations, individual donors and membership fees. The latest trend is non-profit networks that share resources. Collaboration is a good thing, but it can lead to tensions among collaborators. How can such centers...
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Social Media
Rules of Engagement for Journalists on Twitter
Twitter's role in the Iranian election aftermath leaves no doubt about its power as a global, real time, citizen-journalism style news wire service, along with a tool for facilitating dissent, while countering the view of Twitter as simply a zone for egotistical banality. But it also highlighted Twitter's role as a platform and content generator for traditional media outlets,...
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Weblogs
Journalists Consider Risks, Conflicts of Running Personal Blogs
Implementing strategies developed by millions of office workers who have honed the practice of flipping from computer solitaire to spreadsheets at the first sign of a lurking supervisor, I hid my blog from my co-workers. I had been a blogger for nearly four years by the time I entered the newspaper industry in 2006, and when I later accepted a...
more »Your Take
Should bloggers avoid conflicts of interest as journalists do?
With so many journalists now blogging -- thanks to so many mainstream media websites adding journalist blogs -- the question is whether this new wave of bloggers will bring a different ethos to blogging. Say what you will about mainstream media's various foibles and biases, but professional journalists often keep the interest of their readers -- instead of their own self-interests -- paramount. The journalist's code of ethics requires that a reporter should "avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived." But in the blogosphere, the rules are a bit fuzzier.
more »Digging Deeper
Mark Cuban's Sharesleuth Takes Business Reporting to Ethical Edge
Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban has one of the best named weblogs, Blog Maverick, because he is nothing if not a maverick in the technology, sports and online worlds. He shepherded his Broadcast.com streaming multimedia company through a successful initial public offering in 1998 and sold it to Yahoo in 1999 for more than $5 billion. Cuban used the proceeds to start high-definition TV networks, HDNet, buy Landmark Movie theaters and buy the Dallas Mavericks NBA team. He's probably the only major team owner who asks fans to email him feedback.
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