Balancing community involvement with journalistic detachment is a continuing challenge for many journalists.
If you become too involved with community affairs, you can’t write about them credibly. And if you are too detached from the community, you are less likely to know what’s going on and to understand context. The balance can be especially challenging in small towns, where the pressure to become involved and the visibility of involvement may be greater. I wrote about this challenge last month, responding to a question that a friend had passed along to me.
At the time, I invited some colleagues who have taught and written about journalism ethics to respond to the same question. Newspaper consultant Jim Pumarlo, former editor of the Red Wing Republican Eagle in Minnesota, responded. Jim is the author of Bad News and Good Judgment: A Guide to Reporting on Sensitive Issues in a Small-Town Newspaper and Votes and Quotes: A Guide to Outstanding Election Campaign Coverage. Here is Jim’s response, followed by some further thoughts of mine:
Avoiding ethical conflicts requires constant oversight, and potential conflicts can especially be a minefield in community newspapers
I certainly had my share when it came to news decisions. A reporter’s spouse was director of special education for the local school district. A reporter was asked to serve on the city’s Charter Commission. A former publisher of a sister newspaper in our circulation area sought a seat in the state legislature. And, the most challenging, navigating coverage of the numerous civic organizations and task forces that our staff, including myself, were involved in – some boards that were high profile in our community and warranted regular news coverage.
The best strategy, as you recommend: Be square with the public. That requires a twofold approach. No. 1, convene an internal discussion – seeking voices from all departments within the newspaper – to explore the best course of action. No. 2, communicate regularly with readers when these potential conflicts arise.
In that regard, I wrote a weekly column at the Red Wing Republican Eagle that sought to explain newspaper ethics and operations. It was my way to respond to questions and keep readers abreast of our operations. By no means did it guarantee that readers would agree with all of our decisions, but that they had a deeper understanding of how we arrived at our decisions.
Here are links to some sample columns:
- Keeping ear to ground is not conflict of interest
- Reader complains to News Council
- A guide to fairness: A+B+C+D+E=F
- Critiquing the article as editor, parishioner
- Reporting sensitive issues with consistency, fairness
The best formula for dealing with ethical challenges – for that matter, all “sensitive” news issues – is consistency and fairness. Most important, in the broader arena of covering sensitive issues, newsrooms must have a plan.
- Define the issue.
- Identify the values. For example, what has precedence – getting the story, or respecting an individual’s privacy?
- Consult relevant standards. Are there ethical principles that offer guidance in the decision-making?
- Assess your loyalties. To whom or what does the newspaper owe its major loyalties in pursing a story? Is it a business decision? Is the story satisfying the needs of readers, or of a news source?
Deciding whether to publish a story – and establishing or following a set of guidelines – are just two necessary steps when addressing sensitive and ethical issues. The final step is explaining a newspaper’s decisions to readers. My column frequently served that role – outlining the hows and whys of our approach to a story.
Editors and reporters must remember that newspapers can go to great lengths to develop all sorts of policies, and they still will be caught flat-footed on occasion. News occurs 24/7. Deadlines and other circumstances – especially with the ease and immediacy of posting news on the Web – do not always allow newsrooms to refer to their ABCs of thinking through all ethically challenging issues, and then proceed in an orderly fashion. Even the most comprehensive written policies are certain to miss some circumstances.
When it’s all said and done, another element – discussion – is common to the three steps in addressing ethically challenging issues: Develop the policy, implement the policy, and lastly explain the policy to readers. All decisions are stronger if the options are talked about with as many individuals as possible – people within and outside of the newsroom. Discussions do not mean consensus will be developed, but it assures that editors will receive many perspectives before making a final call.
Thanks to Jim for sharing his candid views on this important issue of journalism ethics.
I don’t agree with everything Jim wrote in his columns. For instance, I would never serve, or allow a member of a news staff that I led to serve, as president of the Chamber of Commerce, as Jim did in Red Wing. In the first column above, Jim describes a much deeper involvement in the community than I think is wise for an editor. The fact that it creates an appearance of conflict is evident from the fact that Jim wrote the column in response to a letter to the editor. Jim wrote that he thought it was more important for an editor to keep his ear to the ground in the community.
I think you can keep your ear to the ground without becoming that entangled with the institutions of the community. An editor who is leading community institutions may want to keep organizational secrets that the community has an interest in learning and should count on news organizations to try to learn and tell. If the organizaton is not serving the community well, some people will not have confidence in the news organization to report that. If the organization is serving the community well, some people will be skeptical of the flattering coverage the news organization provides.
One of the core values of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics and of the Poynter Institute’s Guiding Principles for the Journalist is “act independently.” Some journalists take that value to an extreme where they are perceived as (or actually become) aloof and uncaring about the community. These journalists run the risk of being unable to learn of events, issues and trends in the community.
In another area, I would express things differently than Jim did, though we might not actually disagree. In one of his points above, Jim wrote: “Identify the values. For example, what has precedence – getting the story, or respecting an individual’s privacy?” I don’t see this as a matter of one value having more inherent weight than the other. We always want to get the story and we always want to respect privacy. We can’t always do both. In the cases where those come into conflict, we weigh the factors of each particular case and examine alternatives. Sometimes we will decide the story serves a valid public interest and identification is an important part of the story, so we publish a story, understanding that it may unfortunately damage someone’s privacy. In other cases, we will decide we can tell an important story without identifying a key person, such as a child or a victim of sexual assault. And sometimes we decide the public interest in a story is not strong enough and we don’t publish.
In most cases, journalism ethics is not a field of absolute black-and-white where one position is the ethical one and all others are unethical. As Jim has described, you weigh values and make decisions and you are honest with the public about those decisions.
And you need to be honest with yourself, your staff and the public that these are not easy decisions.
A great many issues can be stopped dead with a heavily formatted approach to certain types of community news. It doesn’t matter whose daughter on the newspaper’s staff is in a high school play if every high school play gets a dress rehearsal photo, a list of cast, a paragraph on why they picked “Oklahoma!” this year, and information on times and tickets and parking. Everyone can see everybody getting the same amount of milk in their glass and the same number of cookies — and it reduces the bulk of the thing down to the amount that people actually find useful.
The problems exist mainly if people think your involvement produces bias.
If you’re going to report on Rotary because you’re in it and not make sure Kiwanis stuff gets in, you’re kind of beyond reach of a life preserver anyway….
We have found that political entanglements are best handled with a simple explanation. When our editorial page editor’s husband ran for county judge, we told people on our editorial pageswhat was up and that she wouldn’t be handling any editorials about the judicial system for awhile and that I’d be processing all letters to the editor dealing with the judge campaign and that people weren’t even talking to her about the campaign in the office. Even his opponents didn’t have a problem. In a bigger community where maybe more folks don’t personally know the people involved, that might not fly. But it worked for us.
Bill Watson
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Excellent point, Bill. Most people can recognize fairness. If they see it, you don’t have a problem. If you don’t, they start looking for the hidden reasons. And if you’re transparent about potential conflicts and how you handle them, nothing is hidden.
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Steve:
Thanks for your perspective. As you aptly point out, journalism ethics, especially in small-town settings, are complex.
I agree that in a perfect world, you draw a clear separation on employee participation in community institutions. The reality, however, especially in smaller communities, is that vibrant newspapers – and key employees – provide important leadership that otherwise might be lacking in important communitywide initiatives.
At Red Wing, we did draw the line on individuals seeking elective office. But that stance is certainly not an industry norm. I’d like to say that editors and publishers who are successful in elective office take steps to separate themselves from the news coverage of the respective bodies. That, unfortunately, is not the case in all instances. And that practice does prompt serious issues of newspaper ethics and credibility.
It might appear to be a no-brainer – that editors, publishers, etc., should never consider seeking elective office. But should some communities suffer if effective leaders have to sit on the sidelines? Newspapers indeed can wield influence through active editorial pages and aggressive news coverage, but that often is not a substitute for direct participation by the individuals themselves.
Are there ethical challenges to direct community participation by newsroom employees? Indeed, as Steve correctly points out. He cites one of the toughest – protecting an organizational secret before it’s ready to become public.
That said, the Republican Eagle was known for its aggressive news coverage and local editorials. Our newsroom motto: “If individuals tried to withhold a story, we doubled and tripled our efforts to break the story on our terms and not theirs.” And we routinely succeeded. That’s not to say we never held a story if the arguments were convincing. But that happens in all newsrooms, regardless if individuals are personally involved in a news story.
Another challenge to small-town journalism ethics: If you want to remain pure on the separation between newspaper employment and community participation, you can arguably extend that separation to other personnel in other departments, especially management-level individuals. The reality in most communities is that if the newspaper declared all potential conflicts of interest, you’d probably be adding footnotes to myriad news stories and editorial commentary.
At what staff level or size of community is participation by newspaper personnel acceptable or ethical? That is the million-dollar question.
That’s why, as everyone agrees, transparency is so important: Be square with your readers. As Bill Watson noted in his comments, a simple explanation to readers is the best remedy.
Small-town journalism ethics will continue to pose challenging circumstances. That underscores the importance of editors and publishers convening the discussion regularly both within your entire newspaper operations and with your readers.
Jim Pumarlo
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[…] Community involvement poses ethical challenges for journalists (a follow-up to Avoiding ethical conflicts in small towns) […]
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[…] Community involvement poses ethical challenges for journalists […]
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[…] Steve Buttry argues that if you are a disconnected journalist you cannot give the people what they need and are seeking, therefore, you must be engaged with the community. He said journalists take the Society of Professional Journalists creed of “act independently” a little too seriously, and they become detached and “aloof” to what surrounds them. […]
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