Selling-out, bought the farm
I guess I didn't kill all my brain cells while celebrating Google's acquisition of Dodgeball with everyone Wednesday night. (Down to my undershirt? Randy and Dball founder Dens totally shirtless?? Jesus H. Dog balls, someone please send those guys home!) I managed to make one more comment on Buzzmachine today about the Spokane Mayor Sex Scandal and Leonard Witt who is guest-blogging on Jay Rosen's PressThink writes to tell me he added my "excellent comment" to his running commentary on the affair. (Unemployed and suffering a day-long hangover, I'll take any compliment I can get.) I got the urge after reading/agreeing with what Rosen and Steve Lovelady, managing editor of CJR Daily, had to say about the whole thing. Here it is again with a couple of my typos fixed and reference links.
Leonard Witt: Jeff Jarvis after looking at the plethora of ethics codes said maybe we should consolidate them all down to Don't lie. Don't sell out, and Andrew Krucoff in a comment at Jeff's site weighed in for individual codes, and I quote in full:
A local newspaper (or any for that matter) does not have to answer to your, my, an academic's, out of touch old school editor's, or any organization's code of ethics other than the ones they've determined and created for themselves that are in the best interests of serving the welfare of their readership. These are decisions for each newspaper to make and they wouldn't be around for very long if their code of ethics was that far out-of-whack with their constituents or illegal, obviously.
Of course, you don't have to dig deep into these institutional prescribed codes, like ASNE's, to find total justification for what the Spokane paper did: "The American press was made free not just to inform or just to serve as a forum for debate but also to bring an independent scrutiny to bear on the forces of power in the society, including the conduct of official power at all levels of government." Sounds about right to me.
Ultimately, a newspaper need only answer to its readers and in this case there is overwhelming support for the paper from Spokane citizens. That's not "bad journalism" that's just good public service journalism. They're damn lucky none of those big city editors or academics who are so short-sighted and arrogant to call this "bad for journalism" are the editor of their newspaper.
I think Jay Rosen said it best: "The case does not lend itself to "rules." What it requires instead is judgment, and that holds for we critics and observers, too."
Selling-out is betraying your values and going against what you know is right. Kudos to Steve Smith for not doing that while serving in the best interests of Spokane citizens.
Leonard Witt: Jeff Jarvis after looking at the plethora of ethics codes said maybe we should consolidate them all down to Don't lie. Don't sell out, and Andrew Krucoff in a comment at Jeff's site weighed in for individual codes, and I quote in full:
A local newspaper (or any for that matter) does not have to answer to your, my, an academic's, out of touch old school editor's, or any organization's code of ethics other than the ones they've determined and created for themselves that are in the best interests of serving the welfare of their readership. These are decisions for each newspaper to make and they wouldn't be around for very long if their code of ethics was that far out-of-whack with their constituents or illegal, obviously.
Of course, you don't have to dig deep into these institutional prescribed codes, like ASNE's, to find total justification for what the Spokane paper did: "The American press was made free not just to inform or just to serve as a forum for debate but also to bring an independent scrutiny to bear on the forces of power in the society, including the conduct of official power at all levels of government." Sounds about right to me.
Ultimately, a newspaper need only answer to its readers and in this case there is overwhelming support for the paper from Spokane citizens. That's not "bad journalism" that's just good public service journalism. They're damn lucky none of those big city editors or academics who are so short-sighted and arrogant to call this "bad for journalism" are the editor of their newspaper.
I think Jay Rosen said it best: "The case does not lend itself to "rules." What it requires instead is judgment, and that holds for we critics and observers, too."
Selling-out is betraying your values and going against what you know is right. Kudos to Steve Smith for not doing that while serving in the best interests of Spokane citizens.
