mr200810@ohio.edu
It is a dangerous business when journalists make mistakes. As a profession that prides itself in its effort to remain ethical, informative and honest, it's nothing but damaging when a news corporation makes a hefty mistake.
How journalists handle these mishaps set apart the good journalists from the bad ones. The question is, how do journalists decide to handle these mistakes in order to maintain integrity and the public's trust, and more importantly their jobs.
The way companies respond to mistakes in reporting can have an impact on the way other mediums and public figures handle these crises.
"Leaders in a profession dedicated to shining a light on truth and helping enforce accountability need to meet the same standard of transparency they demand of others." - Craig Silverman, award-winning journalist.
If there is no transparency, others may feel exempt from the high ethical standards to which we strive to hold ourselves.
In my opinion one of the worst things a news corporation can do is plagiarize or fabricate an article, and not confront it or own up to it when they're found out. This practice doesn't only hurt the corporation who made the mistake, but surrounding news organizations who feel like they can take the same actions, or worse, suffer from public mistrust because other corporations are not being honest.
One way that tense situations like this can be overcome is by creating strict guidelines for handling a mistake. Old and new journalists alike need to be up to date with common practices of the newsroom and how to handle plagiarism and inconsistency.
In his article "The best (and worst) media errors and corrections of 2012" Craig Silverman pokes fun at news corporations who had hefty mistakes and corrections that caught the public's eye. He also mentions mistakes of epic proportion and newsrooms that took a hefty blow to their reputation because of it.
- www.poytner.org
But what about several tabloid news organizations who often publish information that is completely fabricated or found to be untrue? Do we hold these companies to the same standards as we do the Washington Post and The New York Times? When it comes to celebrity news the rules aren't as clear, however these mistakes and sometimes defamatory statements can hurt someone in the public eye. For now, it seems, we will keep seeing headlines that are clearly false, and these magazines will most likely get away with it.
www.thehollywoodgossip.com
While reporters mistakes can sometimes be funny or go viral, like when many news corporations often have a slip of the tongue and refer to the POTUS as "Osama," most of these mistakes should not be laughed at and instead addressed by the corporation and questioned by the public.
I have no answer that will correct all the problems within the media in one fell swoop, but I can say that if we still want to be seen as trustworthy people and maintain high esteem in the public (if the majority of us even still have that) we need to focus on ourselves and making ethical decisions when it comes to our reporting.
- Footage from when a television station didn't fact checked and read incorrect names of pilots of Asiana Flight 214, which gained international attention and damaged their reputation.
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