Public deserves open access; Daily Press, June 10, 2017

Marisa Porto, Daily Press; Public deserves open access

"American writer Walter Lippman once wrote, "The best servants of the people, like the best valets, must whisper unpleasant truths in the master's ear."

His quote describes perfectly the mission of a newspaper and its staff.

That mission remains at the heart of why Americans should be concerned about the state of the Freedom of Information Act around this nation.

This year alone, journalists from my news organization have filed dozens of FOIA requests. The topics they asked about ranged from bus accidents to crime statistics to how millions of dollars of taxpayer money was spent on a private business venture at our local airport. The last request sparked a statewide investigation, prompted a change in state law and has caused the firing of the airport director and the resignation of one top city official — so far...

Playwright Arthur Miller once said, "A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself."

Let's keep the conversation going."

Ethics, Quants and Cold-Calling; Bloomberg, May 25, 2017

Matt Levine, Bloomberg; 

Ethics, Quants and Cold-Calling

"Ethics.

I used to be a lawyer, and lawyers have a code of ethics. Now I am a journalist, and journalists have a code of ethics. One thing that strikes me about these codes is that they are opposites. Oversimplifying massively, the basic rule for a lawyer is that your obligations are to your client, and you have to act in her best interests, even if that is against the interests of accuracy; legal ethics is then mostly a set of exceptions to this principle. Oversimplifying massively, the basic rule for a journalist is that your obligations are to the public, and you should be accurate even if that is against the interests of the people you talk to; journalistic ethics is then mostly a set of exceptions to this principle. In both cases the exceptions are huge and important: You're not supposed to lie to the public as a lawyer, or mislead your sources as a journalist, etc; none of this is meant to be any sort of ethical advice. But if someone says to you "oh yeah I murdered someone," as a lawyer, your baseline expected response would be not to tell anyone; as a journalist, your baseline expected response would be to tell everyone.

Obviously these opposite rules make sense in their respective contexts; the role of a lawyer is different from that of a journalist, and each profession's ethics are well adapted to doing their jobs usefully. Still it is weird to think of them as "ethics." They are both functional systems adapted to the work of their professions, not absolute moral-ethical rules handed down by a higher power. Keeping a murderer's secret is not absolutely ethical for humans, and disclosing that secret is not absolutely ethical for humans; each is ethical or unethical depending on its social context."

The Trump scandal that has nothing to do with Russia; Washington Post, May 24, 2017

E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post; The Trump scandal that has nothing to do with Russia

"And it is worth noting, as Ronald Brownstein did in the Atlantic, that in the five Rust Belt states that swung from Barack Obama to Trump, whites without a four-year college degree — the heart of the Trump constituency — “constitute most of those receiving assistance” from food stamps and the parts of Social Security that Trump would also slash. If Trump really wants people to go to work, how does he think taking money away from job training and college assistance will ease their path to self-sufficiency?

Martin Wolf, the Financial Times columnist, captured Trump’s ideology with precision when he called it “pluto-populism.” It involves “policies that benefit plutocrats, justified by populist rhetoric.”"

Goodbye Spin, Hello Raw Dishonesty; New York Times, March 3, 2017

Paul Krugman, New York Times; 

Goodbye Spin, Hello Raw Dishonesty

"And the question is, who’s going to stop him?

The moral vacuity of Republicans in Congress, and the unlikelihood that they’ll act as any check on the president, becomes clearer with each passing day. Even the real possibility that we’re facing subversion by agents of a foreign power, and that top officials are part of the story, doesn’t seem to faze them as long as they can get tax cuts for the rich and benefit cuts for the poor.

Meanwhile, Republican primary election voters, who are the real arbiters when polarized and/or gerrymandered districts make the general election irrelevant for many politicians, live in a Fox News bubble into which awkward truths never penetrate."

Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein: Trump’s attacks on the press are more dangerous than Nixon’s; Washington Post, February 19, 2017

Avi Selk and Kristine Guerra; Washington Post; Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein: Trump’s attacks on the press are more dangerous than Nixon’s

"Trump was speaking to his 25 million Twitter followers when, after weeks of news reports on scandals and chaos in his White House, he called most of the major news organizations in the United States “enemies of the American People!"

“We're not enemies of the American people," Bernstein said on CNN. “In fact, we're the last resort of the American people to a dictatorial and authoritarian-inclined president.""

How to solve Facebook's fake news problem: experts pitch their ideas; Guardian, 11/29/16

Nicky Woolf, Guardian; How to solve Facebook's fake news problem: experts pitch their ideas:

"...[A] growing cadre of technologists, academics and media experts are now beginning the quixotic process of trying to think up solutions to the problem, starting with a rambling 100+ page open Google document set up by Upworthy founder Eli Pariser...

“The biggest challenge is who wants to be the arbiter of truth and what truth is,” said Claire Wardle, research director for the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. “The way that people receive information now is increasingly via social networks, so any solution that anybody comes up with, the social networks have to be on board.”...

Most of the solutions fall into three general categories: the hiring of human editors; crowdsourcing, and technological or algorithmic solutions."

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook Must Defend the Truth; New York Times, 11/20/16

Jim Rutenberg, New York Times; Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook Must Defend the Truth:

"Today’s fake news is limited only by the imaginations of its inventors and the number of shares it can garner on Facebook or Twitter.

(To wit: The one million shares of the preposterous notion that Mrs. Clinton secretly sold weapons to ISIS. BuzzFeed News — which has excelled at illuminating the fake news problem — highlighted that example in its alarming analysis showing that during the campaign cycle fake news was shared among Facebook users more often than real news was.)

That’s why people who care about the truth — citizens, journalists and, let’s hope, social media giants like Facebook, too — will have to come up with a solution to this informational nihilism, fast.

It’s easier said than done. The combination of attacks seeking to delegitimize serious news organizations and a drop in overall trust in the news media has made many people wary of legitimate fact-checking."

Our First Amendment test is here. We can’t afford to flunk it.; Washington Post, 11/13/16

Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post; Our First Amendment test is here. We can’t afford to flunk it. :

"For journalists, it’s writing and reporting aggressively and fearlessly, and being willing to fight for access. For citizens, it’s being well-informed, including subscribing to newspapers and supporting the best journalism. It’s helping to debunk and call out fake news. It’s donating to, or getting involved with, civil rights and media rights organizations. And it’s backing public officials committed to protecting free expression.

Americans certainly shouldn’t move to Canada, but they should heed the words of the Canadian songwriter Joni Mitchell: “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?”"

The 'p-word' problem: Trump's comments pose issue for news outlets; CNN, 10/7/16

[Graphic Language] Frank Pallotta, CNN; The 'p-word' problem: Trump's comments pose issue for news outlets:

"The 2005 videotape in which Donald Trump can be heard making vulgar comments about women posed a dilemma for news outlets: do they run in full the most vital and graphic line of a news story that could help determine a presidential election -- or do they censor it for the sake of decency?"

Red-state newspaper endorsements of Clinton are not as pointless as they look; Washington Post, 9/28/16

Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post; Red-state newspaper endorsements of Clinton are not as pointless as they look:

"Which brings me to the second reason for writing an endorsement editorial — even if it proves ineffectual and even if it deeply angers some readers: Publishing them is the right thing to do.

Editorial boards are mostly made up of thoughtful, smart and well-informed journalists who have had a chance to study and discuss the candidates seriously. In some cases, they have had the chance to meet with them in person. They have a unique and important vantage point.

What’s more, they have a bully pulpit. In a contest this important and this close, they need to use it. They would be walking away from their responsibility if they thought first about making some readers mad enough to cancel, even temporarily.

“We write our editorials based on principle, and sometimes principle comes at a cost,” the Morning News’s Wilson said."

A Republican Candidate Said He Hoped I Got Raped; Daily Beast, 9/6/16

[Graphic Language] Olivia Nuzzi, Daily Beast; A Republican Candidate Said He Hoped I Got Raped:

"In an additional statement to The Daily Beast, the West Deptford Executive Board said, “We have been informed he is resigning.” But the fate of political discourse in America is less certain.

News publications (including this one) have made a big show of eliminating comments sections in recent years, arguing, correctly, that they are little more than safe spaces for bullies. But increasingly every other public forum is becoming like that, too.

And in the age of Trump, bullying has been rebranded as telling it like it is.

Using obscene or threatening language is a point of pride, proof that you’re beholden to nothing but the truth. And anyone who can’t handle that? Well, they’re just a politically correct loser."

Hillary Clinton Gets Gored; New York Times, 9/5/16

Paul Krugman, New York Times; Hillary Clinton Gets Gored:

"So I would urge journalists to ask whether they are reporting facts or simply engaging in innuendo, and urge the public to read with a critical eye. If reports about a candidate talk about how something “raises questions,” creates “shadows,” or anything similar, be aware that these are all too often weasel words used to create the impression of wrongdoing out of thin air.

And here’s a pro tip: the best ways to judge a candidate’s character are to look at what he or she has actually done, and what policies he or she is proposing. Mr. Trump’s record of bilking students, stiffing contractors and more is a good indicator of how he’d act as president; Mrs. Clinton’s speaking style and body language aren’t. George W. Bush’s policy lies gave me a much better handle on who he was than all the up-close-and-personal reporting of 2000, and the contrast between Mr. Trump’s policy incoherence and Mrs. Clinton’s carefulness speaks volumes today.

In other words, focus on the facts. America and the world can’t afford another election tipped by innuendo."

Am I a good person? You asked Google – here’s the answer; Guardian, 8/31/16

Andrew Brown, Guardian; Am I a good person? You asked Google – here’s the answer:

"The beginning of being a good person is the knowledge that you may not be, or that you have acted as a bad one would. After that it gets complicated.

The most obvious complication, perhaps, is that there is no agreement on what constitutes a good person. In fact there’s no agreement on whether we should even agree who a good person is...

The only certain thing about this question is that if you’ve never thought to ask it, the answer has to be “no”."

Peter Thiel: The Online Privacy Debate Won’t End With Gawker; New York Times, 8/15/16

Peter Thiel, New York Times; Peter Thiel: The Online Privacy Debate Won’t End With Gawker:

"The United States House of Representatives is considering the Intimate Privacy Protection Act, a bipartisan bill that would make it illegal to distribute explicit private images, sometimes called revenge porn, without the consent of the people involved. Nicknamed the Gawker Bill, it would also provide criminal consequences for third parties who sought to profit from such material.

This is a step in the right direction. Protecting individual dignity online is a long-term project, and it will require many delicate judgments. We can begin on solid ground by acknowledging that it is wrong to expose people’s most intimate moments for no good reason. That is the kind of clear moral line that Gawker and publishers like it have sought to blur. But they can’t do it if we don’t let them."

Gawker's downfall is a 'scary prospect for journalists'; Washington Post, 8/19/16

[Video] Paul Farhi and Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post; Gawker's downfall is a 'scary prospect for journalists' :

"The news and gossip site Gawker.com is shuttering after a lengthy court battle with former professional wrestling star Hulk Hogan, who was secretly backed by Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel. The Post's Margaret Sullivan and Paul Farhi look at Gawker's legacy and how this could be a dangerous precedent for news critics."

Think Tanks and the Influence of Corporate Dollars; New York Times, 8/10/16

Room for Debate, New York Times; Think Tanks and the Influence of Corporate Dollars:

"Think tanks inform both government policy and media analysis with their research, because as nonprofit institutions, they are seen as independent. But some institutions vigorously push their donors’ agendas, acting like lobbyists. Some scholars even use their positions at think tanks to promote work they are separately paid to do for corporations.

What can be done to protect against corporate influence over research institutions?"

Journalism: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO); HBO via YouTube, 8/7/16

HBO via YouTube; Journalism: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) :

"The newspaper industry is suffering. That’s bad news for journalists — both real and fictional."

How journalists can do their crucial job in the next 100 days; Washington Post, 7/31/16

Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post; How journalists can do their crucial job in the next 100 days:

"How should the media recalculate in the months before Nov. 8, especially given the sharp divisions in the country?

We should remind ourselves of the fundamentals: Journalists’ most important role is giving Americans the information they need to cast their vote. And a lot of potential voters — about 11 percent — still haven’t decided, many of them not happy with either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

“We are supposed to help citizens participate in democracy,” said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute and the co-author, with Bill Kovach, of “The Elements of Journalism” and “Blur.” What journalists should not be doing, he told me, is “being part of the team,” on either side.

Whatever one thinks of the concept of journalistic objectivity — some think it’s dated and counterproductive — what’s really important is independence."

Is the Elite Media Failing to Reach Trump Voters?; Slate, 7/28/16

Isaac Chotiner, Slate; Is the Elite Media Failing to Reach Trump Voters? :

"Has your opinion of him or WikiLeaks’ project changed?

Yeah, it has, because when WikiLeaks first began—one of the things that people have forgotten—they were actually very careful in redacting. In fact, there were tons of redactions when they were releasing Pentagon documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. And they even wrote a letter to the State Department before they released the cables requesting the State Department’s help in figuring out which information ought to be withheld. And I used to defend WikiLeaks all the time on the grounds that they were not indiscriminate dumpers of information; they were carefully protecting people’s reputations. And they have changed their view on that—and no longer believe, as Julian says, in redacting any information of any kind for any reason—and I definitely do not agree with that approach and think that they can be harmful to innocent people or other individuals in ways that I don’t think is acceptable."

In the age of Donald Trump, is it time to revisit media ethics?; Washington Post, 7/11/16

Robert Gebelhoff, Washington Post; In the age of Donald Trump, is it time to revisit media ethics? :

"Still, the questions the media needs to consider go beyond election coverage. How much weight should news outlets give reader interest when deciding what to cover? If a story — about Cecil the lion or the color of a dress, for example — generates a lot of discussion, is the media obligated to spend as much time on it as other, more pressing content? And if readers don’t seem to be interested in a story with substance — such as the civil war in Yemen, for example — should outlets assign it fewer resources?

These aren’t new questions by any means, but they become more important as newsrooms shrink and the demand for coverage increases. How will the changing media landscape impact the quality of content? Will important coverage fall through the cracks, especially at the local level? To what extent should consumers be held accountable for how journalism has been transformed?"