Around the world, reporters, editors and their news organizations are constantly tested ethically: In tough economic and political environments, journalists accept money in exchange for positive stories about a candidate. In more developed countries, top dogs at news organizations sometimes censor reporters based on an advertiser-publisher relationship. Who controls the Internet, where almost everyone now publishes, has also become an ethical issue for journalists.
Join IJNet for a live chat on July 15 at 10 a.m. EDT to learn more about how journalists can overcome these obstacles. Participants will be free to ask questions, pose their own ethical dilemmas and get advice from Aidan White, the director of the Ethical Journalism Network; Tom Kent, the standards editor at the Associated Press; and Ceren Sözeri, an associate professor at Galatasaray University in Istanbul.
Interested participants can enter the chat here on the day of the event or ask questions on Twitter using the hashtag #IJNetLive.
During the chat, White, Kent and Sözeri will discuss EJN's most recent report, Untold Stories: How Corruption and Conflicts of Interest Stalk the Newsroom. Untold Stories focuses on various ethical issues throughout 18 diverse countries, including the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Colombia, India, Egypt and nations across Eastern Europe.
Leaders in the world of ethics in journalism, White, Kent and Sözeri will also elaborate on:
- Journalists' relations to political candidates
- Government and internal censorship
- The ethical cost of competition for clicks
- Paid journalism, also known as native advertising
About the chat leaders:
Aidan White is the director of the Ethical Journalism Network, a coalition of media professionals and support groups committed to supporting independent journalism and building trust in media. White edited and wrote the introduction for EJN's Untold Stories report. Prior to managing EJN, White worked as a journalist at the Guardian before serving as the general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists for 24 years.
Tom Kent is the standards editor at the AP, where he is responsible for deciding the news organization's international editorial and ethical standards in text, photos, video, radio and interactives. He has spoken on numerous panels about ethics in journalism, including the most recent Global Editors' Network summit in Barcelona. Kent is an advisor to EJN and is currently working with the Online News Association to launch the “Build Your Own Ethics Code” initiative, which will help news organizations and journalists create codes of ethics aligned with their journalistic principles.
Ceren Sözeri is an associate professor at Galatasaray University in Istanbul. She is the author of the chapter in Untold Stores titled, "Journalism a victim of cozy relations between politics and media." Sözeri received her Ph.D. from Marmara University and has published several reports on the state of the media in Turkey.
Main image CC-licensed via Flickr by The Open University.