Slides and links for SPJ webinar on using unnamed sources

I presented a webinar Wednesday for the Society of Professional Journalists on using (and reducing the use of unnamed sources).

I discussed points made in previous posts about using unnamed sources, including one on persuading people to talk for the record about difficult topics and another on using information from unnamed sources to persuade other sources to talk for the record. I also talked about the importance of power and eagerness in granting confidentiality, and suggested we should not quote spokespeople for powerful people and organizations without using their names.

I encourage using the Online News Association’s Build Your Own Ethics Code tool, which has a section to guide decisions on how to use unnamed sources.

Here are slides for the webinar:

Interested in a workshop?

If you’d like a workshop or webinar for your organization, on unnamed sources or one of the many other topics I teach, contact me at stephenbuttry (at) gmail (dot) com.

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Slides and links from SPJ Madison workshop

I was a long-distance participant in a workshop today for the Madison, Wis., chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

My first session, about going digital-first in your newsroom, drew heavily from my Project Unbolt posts, particularly those on breaking news, enterprise reporting, routine daily reporting and the post about the Five Satins story. Here are the slides for that workshop, on which I collaborated with Joel Christopher:

I collaborated on the second workshop, on mobile news-gathering, with Nick Penzenstadler. That relied heavily on my posts about live coverage and my livetweeting tips. Here are Nick’s slides (used with his permission), followed by mine:

Nick Penzenstadler SPJ2014

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Journalist’s job is like a witness: Tell the whole truth and nothing but

A while back Scott Leadingham of the Society of Professional Journalists asked me to contribute to a feature asking journalists for our personal codes of ethics. He posted my reply at the SPJ Works blog:

A journalist’s job is pretty much like a witness’s oath in court: to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. …

I hope you check out SPJ Works for the rest of my response, which was brief.

I called on SPJ in 2010 to update its Code of Ethics. I also recommended some changes in Poynter’s Guiding Principles for the Journalist, which are being updated.

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