Everyone’s 15 Minutes: Local News

Meg Omecene

@megomecene

Everyone’s 15 Minutes: Local News

Like clockwork, the week before a play opened at my high school, there would be a buzz in the auditorium. Bethany was inside. Had she brought a photographer? 

Bethany was not some reporter from People Magazine or US Weekly. No, of course not. Rather, she was the local from the Pine-Creek Journal, there to create a hard-hitting piece about whatever was the unique quality of this season’s production.

The following Wednesday, some lucky junior or senior would grace the cover of the Pine-Creek Journal. His or her face, caked in makeup and marred by a microphone, would smile at the entire community for the ensuing week. From Panera to the gym to the library, everyone knew the star of the cover.

Of course, the thrill of the high school thespians is just one aspect of local journalism, and I feel like I know this niche well.

Photos like the above appear frequently in community journalism- and these students had a thrill to see their face in print. (Photo courtesy Pine-Creek Journalism)

I think that the “Hyperlocal Heroes” has a bias that discredits it. The person who wrote the piece seemed to have an overly critical view of small-town journalism, but I think that is flawed.

He says that the stories are good if you need to talk about something at dinner, but what is wrong with that? In a small community (and therefore small market), people generally genuinely care more about their neighbors.  

While a story about a senior’s Eagle Scout project is probably not the most exciting thing to write about, the people or the community that the project services do care to hear about it. They want to know about those around them; why not choose to write about it?

However, sometimes I do not think that Miss Bethany The Reporter was always a true journalist. 

Sometimes, I think that people who write local news behave more as public relations personnel than as reporters. While an Eagle Scout project would have a large article about it, showcasing how great the students of my community are, it was not as if the community was lily-white and sinless.

When the athletic director at my school was charged with a repeat DUI offense, there was not a word printed in the paper. When the class president blew a .25 on a breathalizer at a party, that was passed over. When there was outrage over the athletics department receiving money that had been intended for academic use, there was no story.

Although those events are all newsworthy -- especially for a small market -- they would never be written about in the paper. Our local news acted purely as something that could be shown to people considering moving to the area. “Look how great we are here!” The paper cannot afford to lose the support of the community by exposing less-than perfect aspects of the community. 

I think I would have a really hard time acting as a small-town journalist. It would be so hard to set aside loyalties to show what is really going on in a community -- as dirty as it can be. Public relations is where my strengths lie.

Journalism Fakes Hurting the Profession as a Whole

Emily Mueting

em561411@ohio.edu

Society of Professional Journalists, Radio Television Digital News Association, American Society of Magazine Editors, Online News Association, Public Relations Society of America, American Advertising Federation and National Press Photographers Association are all organizations that fall under the journalism category. All of these organizations also have their own ethical codes that tend to follow for the basic ethical values of journalists. Ethical codes are used to help support values and assist journalists with the hard ethical choices they will face.

Similarities in codes among journalist organizations

Many of these codes overlap between the organizations, and that is due to the values they support. Trust, unbiased reporting and fairness, truth and independence from outside pressures are all important values that are universal among the journalistic world.

Another similarity in the codes of journalists is the idea of personal integrity. Because of this, codes are not enforced, but rather guidelines. RTDNA stresses in the preamble of their ethics code, truth. If a journalist does lie to the public, not only will they be breaking the values and codes, they will be hurting their own personal integrity. This was the case with Stephen Glass when he was discovered to be an unethical journalist.

Stephen Glass- Courtesy of vanityfair.com

Glass and public trust

Glass was a journalist for The New Republic who in 1998 was discovered to have fabricated stories for three years for TNR as well as other magazines. With fake sources, quotations and events over that time, it was aware to the journalistic world that it is more important than ever to be ethical journalists. Journalists like Glass give a bad name to their organization and journalism as a whole.

The public’s trust is currently quite low. According to the Pew Research Center’s data collected between July 17 and 21, 2013, 71 percent of people believe that journalists try to cover up their mistakes rather than admit them. In addition, 67 percent of these people believe that stories are often inaccurate.

As student studying journalism ethics, I find these numbers embarrassing. I understand how hard a truly ethical journalist works to preserve a positive image of journalism, however it is much harder to gain trust than it is to lose it. Just like the old saying about taking years to make friends and only seconds to lose them, it can take generations for the public to trust the journalists, and a few individuals to ruin it.

Even in Hollywood, journalists are portrayed in negative ways. For example, in the Spiderman trilogy, Peter Parker is a freelance photojournalist who makes a living by staging photos of himself as Spiderman to sell to the newspaper. Negative portrayals and real life frauds ruin the integrity of journalists everywhere.

Whether it is Peter Parker snapping a shot of himself swinging from a building or Stephen Glass dreaming up an entertaining and humorous story based on fictional events with quotes from people in his head, journalists need to look out for frauds and make sure they follow the values of journalism and the codes established by journalist organizations like RTDNA and SPJ in order to ensure the public that the news they consume is trustworthy and factual.

PRSA Code of Ethics: The Bigger Picture

Hannah May

HMay2011@aol.com

Ethics -- a word that can be translated, interpreted, and acted out differently by all organizations and companies, small or large. It is the civil duty of each business to create their own personal code of ethics that members must carry out on a day-to-day basis. Following a code of ethics in the workforce is one of the first steps to ensure that a business runs successfully and smoothly. The Public Relations Society of America has created their code of ethics that they commit to in order to obtain maximum trust from the public. 

After reading and analyzing the PRSA Code of Ethics, it becomes clear the key beliefs of PRSA.

Gaining trust is the key to success.

As a person in public relations, your main contender is, as the position states, the public. If you do not have the public's trust your service announcements or press releases stand for nothing. What you have worked so hard to construct will go in one ear and out the other. As a PR professional you never want to put yourself in a position that could jeopardize building trust between clients, the employer and the public. The work created must be consistent in strengthening the public’s trust in you and your company. 

Personal actions reflect the whole society.

PRSA believes that as a member of this society, you must commit to ethical practices in order to uphold the reputation of the society as a whole and on a personal level as well.  It is stated in the preamble that, “each of us sets an example for each other.” I believe this statement to be unquestionably true. One simple wrong action from a member of the society could be poorly reflected back onto other members of the society. PRSA believes that they must all uphold a powerful standard of performance, professionalism and ethical conduct to avoid possibly negative accusations and assumptions of other members.

PRSA takes their Code of Ethics seriously, no laughter here. 

Failure to uphold the standards of performance, professionalism and ethical conduct that PRSA administers, results in execution from the society. Your membership will be revoked, and you can no longer associate yourself with PRSA. Simple as that.

Not only should PRSA uphold a high standard of values and ethics, the whole public relations profession should.

One of the most powerful things the public can take away from the PRSA Code of Ethics falls under the PRSA Member Statement of Professional Values. Not only is PRSA stating that their society will personal follow the values listed, but they believe that their Member Code of Ethics sets a standard and guide for the whole public relations profession. They state that their Member Code of Ethics “sets the industry standard for the professional practice of public relations,” and that they believe their “professional values are vital to the integrity of the profession as a whole.” By making that statement PRSA is setting a very high bar for the rest of the public relations world -- a bar that I hope all can meet.

Communication must always be organic, and private when need be.

The information that the public receives needs to always be truthful, that is a given. The content of the public announcement may never be tampered with or persuaded by higher officials. When coming to a crossroads of what information to relay, PRSA states numerous times to, “be honest and accurate in all communications.” The truth may hurt, but sometimes that sting is necessary. On the contrary, it is important for public relations professionals to understand when it is most important to not relay information to the public. PR professionals need to be aware when the client, organization or individual has a right to privacy that triumphs the ability to reveal all information to the public.

PRSA goes above and beyond when creating their Member Code of Ethics. Instead of focusing on their own society, worrying about themselves and not minding what any other public relations firms are doing, the society public declares the importance that the profession as a whole maintain the standards that they are providing. I know personally that down the road in my public relations future, I will be taking a look back at PRSA’s Code of Ethics and making sure I am able to uphold the bar they have set for me as a professional in the field of public relations. 

Cracking the Code

Meredith McNelis

mm132010@ohio.edu

Journalism is not what it used to be. Online forums, blogging and the digital world as a whole have reshaped this profession. Heck, it feels like you don’t even have to be a ‘professional’ to be one of today’s "journalists." Because of the growing ambiguity of this career, the code of ethics it adheres to must alter as well.

The other obvious issue that arises is how can there be one universal definition of what is ethical? Every person has a different idea of what is morally acceptable and fitting to one’s character.

What is Ethics?

When boiled down to its pure definition, ethics simply means “character”, derived from the Greek word ethos. It is what a person, or organization, believes is morally acceptable; what is in good character of someone.

Theory of Knowledge

Ethical Public Relations

I took a personal interest to the Public Relations Society of America Code of Ethics since I am a Strategic Communications major and am a member of PRSSA. When being a part of an organization that’s job is to represent other companies branding and standards, it is imperative that you think in terms of that client. One of their main points is building trust. The fact that they not only want to gain trust within their clients, but their own employers and the public as well, is something that I think is vital to a successful PR firm.

Not Set in Stone

Is it really possible for everyone who is a part of an organization to have the same opinions and moral compass? People are raised differently, have different beliefs, have distinctive characteristics; it’s hard to fit everyone in a box. If you are applying for a job or are a part of an organization, you may not always fall into the same ethical standpoint as their code. I think that a person should not have to adhere to a company’s ethics if it does not match their own, but the person should seek out a job that holds the same ethical code as them.

There is a section in PRSA’s Code of Ethics that is ever changing. They have a portion called Provisions of Conduct that “are actual examples of misconduct” and “more will be added as experience with the code occurs.” They understand that the world of journalism and public relations is constantly shifting. Most codes do not include such sections. For example, Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics was adopted in 1996 and has not been revised sense. I am pretty sure journalism is not the same as it was 17 years ago, so shouldn’t their rules evolve as well?

The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth

I do believe however that every code, and everyone, should remain truthful. As journalists, or public relations professionals, it is our job to report the truth. The public puts their trust in credible reporting and do not want to weed through what is real or not. If a person does not think that reporting false information is unethical, journalism is probably not the profession for them.

Ethics is hard to condense into one simple term. It is different from person to person and changes daily. Technology and the advancement of journalism and public relations play important roles as well in shaping ethics.      

Journalists have a basic ethical guideline

Alexandra Newman
an077811@ohio.edu

After reading the SPJ, the RTDNA, the NPPA, the PRSA and several other organizations Codes of Ethics I feel like I know the four things that all journalists seem to be in agreement about that isn't that far out of normal human beliefs.

Truth:  Every Code of Ethics I read had some sort of section on truth. Many of them starting with the words "Seek the Truth." I think as journalism students that is really all we can do. We don't really have any other motives besides learning about how to be a journalist in the best way possible. So the chances of us not reporting the truth as students I don't think is very high. The excerpt I liked the best was, "Online journalists should uphold traditional high principles in reporting original news for the Internet and in reviewing and corroborating information from other sources" (Online News Association).

Bribes/being swayed: It was very interesting that all of the Codes of Ethics had something about not accepting gifts or payment to run a story or sway a certain way. I find this line more interesting as a student journalist and not as clear. When I am coming up with story ideas I ask my friends. If they are involved in something that I find interesting angle to take on I am more likely to do the story because I know someone involved in it. I think this could take a turn into something a little more biased, even if you're not getting paid or anything, just a unintentional favor to your friend. One of the excepts I liked the best for this example was, "Present analytical reporting based on professional perspective, not personal bias" (RTDNA).

Duty to the Public: It is quite evident that all of these organizations want to do what their doing in the public interest. More journalists would argue that this idea is the most important. As a student journalist I find this to be quite difficult. I would say about half of my peers read the campus publications for fun or personal interest. I think it is quite difficult to reach that other half of students that don't really care about reading about what the City of Athens talked about at their city council meeting last week. In a general sense though, that is what we are here for, the public, but when certain audiences don't really care about what's going on, it's hard to feel like you're accomplishing anything. The excerpt I liked the best was, "We serve the public interest by acting as responsible advocates for those we represent. We provide a voice in the marketplace of ideas, facts, and viewpoints to aid informed public debate" (PRSA).

Follow the law: I think this one kind of speaks for itself, but I think that it is important for the public to remember that journalists aren't above the law, they have the same access to certain documents as the public does. Journalists just have connections so they can get the information more quickly and can check its reliability. I am taking media law and media ethics at the same time, and I really am enjoying the overlap between the ideas that we discuss in both classes. An example of a code of ethics about following the law I liked was, "Advertisers should follow federal, state and local advertising laws, and cooperate with industry self-regulatory programs for the resolution of advertising practices" (Advertising Ethics).

I think it is important that we think of ethics as a guideline and not actual rules, but we understand the law is important in making ethical decisions. I think as a student journalist I am well on my way to being the best journalist possible, as long as I keep my personal values close. 
In conclusion I would like to share this short video with you because I think it is short, sweet and to the point about ethics.

                               
                                                   Video courtesy of YouTube.com.