Another case of ethics?

I had thought about chiming in on Allan Detrich's firing from the Toledo Blade after it was discovered that he turned in some altered images as the genuine article, but there was nothing I felt I could add to the debate that hadn't already been said.

And besides, you've got Detrich himself speaking about the incident to Jim Merithew of the San Francisco Chronicle. Why do you need to hear from anyone else?

Word spread fast in the photojournalism community and within mere hours of the news I had already been e-mailed by colleagues with articles and his portfolio.

It's a shame, clearly the man was talented, but I guess the temptation to push it just a little bit was to much. (I've got ideas for ways to avoid the temptation, but that's a topic for another post.)

So why am I bringing it up today? Well, today once again I am reminded that in my career field of choosing, the real world doesn't always live up to the ideals we that we learn and debate in academia.

The Press Club of Dallas today announced that their yearly contest had been tampered with and that awards going back to 2005 may have been acts of fraud.

The entries for the 2006 Katie Awards apparently never went before judges, and competitions from 2004 and 2005 also are under investigation, said club President Tom Stewart.

The Press Club has a nearly 50 year history of honoring journalist and photographers in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico. It's a shame to see this happen and for the pattern of fraud, lies and deceit to continue.

And after a quick visit to Wikipedia it doesn't look like it's anything new or that it's going to end anytime soon.

Just a few off hand:

-1980's Pulitzer Prize winning story on an 8-year-old heroin addict turned out to be a web by lies spun by Janet Cooke of the Washington Post.

-In 1992 The Oregonian admitted to ignoring allegations of sexual harassment charges against Oregon Republican Sen. Robert Packwood, even keeping hush after knowing of his behavior with one of their female reporters

-2006 hit Wired Magazine hard when freelance writer Philip Chien's articals couldn't be varified and it was discovered that he had even tried to mislead fact checkers with planted e-mails.

-Recently it was revealed that one of Katie Couric's online columns had been plagiarized from a Wall Street Journal article (seriously, like no one reads the WSJ!??) Couric survived the discretion unscathed mostly because she doesn't actually write the online columns, just signs her name to them and pretends they are her words.

And of course we all know about Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, Brian Walski and the Lebanon smoke pictures.

I guess as long as jobs are scare and the pressure to rise to the top is great, some people will give in to the temptation and begin their very public fall from grace.

Virginia Tech Reporting

Sometimes horrific events take place and in the interest of the public, journalists do their job and inform.

Today we faced another such event when a man walked onto the Virginia Tech University campus and chaos ensued with shooting in two location, two hours apart and a half mile apart.

Details are still being ironed out, but it appears what began as a domestic dispute escalated into a hostage situation that left 33 dead and hundreds more trying to put the puzzle together.

After I heard the news on the radio as I was driving to work, I logged onto The Roanoke Times just as I walked into the Santa Cruz Sentinel newsroom.

They were on top of their game. Videos, articles and pictures were up and new information was adding to updates throughout the day. And the reporting went much deeper than what I heard on the radio or would see on TV. The Roanoke Times was covering it from every angle in addition to the main news story with stories about student reactions, neighborhood churches mobilizing, the college's reaction, technologies role in students communication and eye witness reports.

As of right now, they're added a guest book, an interactive map of the events complete with a time line and e-mail excerpts and collections of all the videos and photos produced throughout the day.

I hadn't gotten around to looking up the college paper until just now, but it looks as if The Collegiate Times website had crashed under the weight of unexpected traffic, but they didn't let that keep them down.

A note on the temporary site reads, "Notice: The Collegiate Times main server is down. CollegeMedia.com is the website of our parent company." And they've managed to continue reporting the latest developments, and I would say to a better capacity than many reports I've read today.

Away from traditional news, social networking sites like Facebook set up pages for students to let people know they were okay and share accounts of the events, which some news outlets turned to (why not, a wise reporter uses everything, I've had success with Craigslist even) for potential interview subjects.

It's days like today that remind people like me how important protecting the news is and how we can be a true service for the public.

On another note, what is up with some of these leads I'm finding?

In the wake of the recent massacre at Virginia Tech University many college campuses across the U.S. are re-evaluating their security plan and Texas Tech is one of them.

--source

I don't like to single one news source out like this, and I really did try to find similarly dreadful leads (although I did notice everyone was using 'massacre' in the first sentence... will this create a homogeneous consciousness of what we think happened before we learn all the facts?), but this is the only one that I ran across... and with that I ask, who are the editors letting this fly?

Imus Firing May Create a Slippery Slope

Today Don Imus, who unless you've been under a rock, you know has been at the center of a media storm involving the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers basketball team and some comments he made to his producer at "Imus in the Morning," was fired.

Imus made the statements before Easter weekend and there was a small groundswell, but it wasn't until he appeared on Al Sharpton's radio program that a louder voice was heard. By the end of the show, Imus and his words were everywhere and everyone was talking.

At first it seemed CBS was content with a suspension and the issue would blow over, but the protest grew more vocal and when advertisers started to pull their support (the same thing that triggered ABC to drop Bill Maher's late night show after the events of 9-11) Imus was also dropped by CBS.

Isn't it interesting that as vocal as protesters and critics were, it all came down to advertisers and the money. It's the American way.

Al Sharpton declared a small victory after the CBS verdict to fire Imus came down, calling it an example of hatred that should not and will not be tolerated. News camera were on hand for the response (and while you're at it, check it out, The Spartan Daily now has videos!)

The comments as we've all heard were derogatory and sexist in nature and he was rightfully taken to task for it and with the comments having been played again and again pretty much everyone has heard them and responded in some fashion.

Which brings up another interesting questions, why is it acceptable to repeat the statements on every cable channel and airwave?

How is it that we bleep out the N-word, but no one has batted an eye at this when everyone is claiming that it is just as unacceptable? You'll notice I haven't repeated them here.

And while I'm at it, why did every news front that covered the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers press conference use this picture:


The team has players that are not African-American, and the conference had these other players in attendance, yet their faces are not the ones on the cover of our nations newspapers. Instead we are given an image of what we want to see, because in a way, we want to see racism because that makes for a sexier story.

We are practicing visual racism as a culture, without even saying it we have all agreed that these insults are only for the black athletes, and if you really think about the words, are they really directed at any race? When rappers call women "hoes" are they directing them at any race? If they are, there there are some women in the wrong video.

And I believe nappy hair is not connected to race, I have nappy hair. So then why did the protesters, Rainbow Push (an organization I have volunteered and contributed to) in particular and the media snap onto the idea and why did society accept that this term was only specific to the Black players?

It would seem to me that not only was he wrong for saying what he said, but their is something wrong with us if automatically we assume that he only directed his comments to the African-American players.

I agree that Imus should have been punished, but I'm afraid that by firing him we are heading down a slippery slope. Most people are glad that a hate spewing radio personality will be off the air (but really, is what he said any different than what Howard Stern says?) but this opens a door that allows anyone that doesn't agree with what someone says to harm their livelihood.

For example, let's say tomorrow Regis Philbin comes out in support of gay marriage and decides to marry 50 couples on his show and starts advocating for same-sex nuptials. Before you know it, the opposition is picketing and demanding that Philbin be fired for his actions because they feel he is corrupting America.

Sure at first, ABC will refuse to act and defend his actions, but then the boycott continues and the religious right mobilizes and the state of New York dissolves all the marriages and the voices grow louder and pretty soon advertisers get antsy and start dropping support. The show can't go on without advertisers and ABC decides to let Regis go.

Is that fair? And if you're saying it'll never happen, oh it will happen, afterall they re-elected Bush (zing!).

This was unacceptable behavior and but perhaps we may have gone to far?

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

--Voltaire

Let's not be fooled, this firing was a response to the advertisers and not the protester on CBS' part. The advertisers would not have pulled out if not for the bad publicity spurred by protests, but if you boil it down, it's about the ad rates.

It's an ugly mess all around... sometimes serious situations call for some light hearted ribbing. Send in the clowns!