NewsTrust - Ethics in Journalism - Most Recent Stories

New Report Shows Big-Money Politics and Broadcast Media Are Undermining Democracy

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

FreePress.net - Jan. 26 (Special Report) - On Thursday, Free Press released Citizens Inundated, a report that follows the money trail from big-spending political donors to the bank accounts of the nation's largest broadcast companies.

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Maddow Explodes At PolitiFact

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Rachel Maddow - Jan. 26 (News Analysis) - Rachel Maddow lit into controversial fact-checking outfit PolitiFact with notable fury on her Wednesday show, hammering the organization for a series of statements it made...

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GOP Debates Let Loose The Roar Of The Crowd

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Howard Fineman - Jan. 20 (News Analysis) - Candidates' attacks, gaffes and memory lapses have dominated coverage of the 21 Republican debates so far, but reporters are covering the wrong people. The real story isn't on the stage; it's in the audience.

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The New York Times public editor's very public utterance

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Clay Shirky - Jan. 13 (Opinion) - Thursday, Arthur Brisbane, the public editor of the New York Times, went to his readers with a question : "I'm looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge 'facts' that are asserted by newsmakers they write about." Brisbane (who, as public editor, speaks only for himself, not the Times) referred to two recent stories: the claim that Clarence Thomas had "misunderstood" a financial reporting form when he left out key information, and Mitt Romney's assertion that President Obama gives speeches "apologising" for America. Brisbane asked whether news reporters should have the freedom to investigate and respond to those comments. The reaction from readers was swift, voluminous, negative and incredulous. "Is this a joke? THIS IS YOUR JOB." "If the purpose of the NYT is to be an inoffensive container for ad copy, ...

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Ex-FCC Commissioner Michael Copps on Media Consolidation, Broadband Expansion, Threats to Journalism

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jan. 12 (Interview) - Michael Copps served two terms with the Federal Communications Commission. Now the staunch supporter of an open internet and opponent of media consolidation has retired. In a wide-ranging discussion, he examines the FCC's key accomplishments and failures of the past decade. Copps argues broadband is "the most opportunity-creating technology perhaps in the history of humankind," and laments that the United States still lacks a national broadband infrastructure. He says the FCC has yet to address a lack of diversity in media ownership, noting that "owning a station has a lot to do with the kind of programing that is going to be on that station." Regarding the future of journalism, Copps calls on the FCC to make access to quality journalism a "national priority," saying, "the future of our democracy hinges upon having an informed electorate."

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SHOCK: Meet The New Face Of San Francisco's Most Liberal Talk Radio Station

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - Jan. 06 (News Report) - When listeners of Bay Area progressive talk radio station Green 960 tuned into to host Stephanie Miller's weekday morning drive-time radio program on Wednesday, they...

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Best of the Web Today: Bad-Faith Journalism

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By James Taranto - Jan. 04 (Opinion) - It's not as eagerly awaited as Time's "Man of the Year" was back when people paid attention to Time, but PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" nonetheless manages to generate a lot of chatter, aimed as it is at those who chatter for a living. This year almost all of the chatter was negative, as the St. Petersburg Times's self-styled "fact checking" operation, which usually leans left, tacked to the right, naming as its "Lie" the claim that "Republicans voted to end Medicare." The reference is to Rep. Paul Ryan's reform proposal, which passed the GOP-controlled House as part of a budget resolution before being rejected by the Democratic Senate.

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How will technology influence the news in 2012?

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Dan Gillmor - Dec. 29 (Opinion) - Predicting the next year's news is a fool's errand, but looking at technological trends could give us a hint At the beginning of 2011, aging dictators ruled Egypt and Libya, and despotism was the nearly unquestioned reality in most of the Middle East. The eurozone was seeing trouble at its edges, but wasn't heading toward collapse. News International had successfully covered up most of its rampant bad acts, and Rupert Murdoch was on the verge of even greater control over British media and politics. Anyone who might have predicted how utterly and rapidly those realities would change might have been branded a lunatic. Which is one reason why the annual journalistic ritual of making predictions about the year ahead is a fool's errand. With that in mind, let me offer instead some observations about the technology and media trends we've seen in past months, and how they might play out in 2012. In many cases, the trajectory is deeply worrisome. But I remain an eternal optimist in the face of ...

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The Post-Truth Campaign

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Dec. 23 (Opinion) - Mitt Romney is blazing new trails in politics, where not telling the truth doesn’t seem to have any consequences.

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Fact-checking in the Echo Chamber Nation

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

PolitiFact - By Bill Adair - Dec. 23 (Opinion) - At a Republican campaign rally a few years ago, I asked one of the attendees how he got his news. "I listen to Rush and read NewsMax," he said. "And to make sure I'm getting a balanced view, I watch Fox." My liberal friends get their information from distinctly different sources — Huffington Post, Daily Kos and Rachel Maddow. To make sure they get a balanced view, they click Facebook links — from their liberal friends. This is life in our echo chamber nation. We protect ourselves from opinions we don't like and seek reinforcement from like-minded allies. The paradox ...

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The Hard Truth About Fact-Checking

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By Alec MacGillis - Dec. 21 (Opinion) - My colleague Jonathan Cohn and plenty of others have done yeoman's work today in challenging PolitiFact's awarding of its "lie of the year" award to the Democrats' claim that the Paul Ryan proposal approved by House Republican would "end Medicare." There's little more to say on the substance of the matter. But the moment does present a new opportunity to ask a larger question that has been nagging at me the past year or two: why do we need fact-checkers, anyway?

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Politifact Has Decided That A Totally True Thing Is The "Lie Of The Year," For Some Reason

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Jason Linkins - Dec. 20 (News Analysis) - So, you know, go form an organization called WordTweaker and commit yourself to advocating for the most civil sounding adjectives, if that's what you want to do! But let's recall, Politifact, that your lie of the year is "Republicans voted to end Medicare." And end it, they did vote to do! Now, if the Democrats had said, "Republicans take Medicare out behind the Cannon Office Building and horsewhip it," that's a different story. But you've decided -- incorrectly -- that the most vanilla way of the describing what happened is a deception. And "privatizing" Medicare ends Medicare, as Medicare is a public entitlement program.

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5 of the Biggest Hacks in American Media

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Alex Pareene - Dec. 20 (News Analysis) - Excerpted from Alex Pareene and Salon's 2011 Hack List, here are five of the worst, most predictable and least interesting pundits in America.

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Paul Ryan’s Undeserved Awards

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Nation - By Ari Berman - Dec. 06 (News Analysis) - Tonight in Washington Rep. Paul Ryan will receive Politico ’s “ Health Care Policymaker of the Year ” award. Washington Monthly blogger Steve Benen deftly summarizes the many reasons why Ryan is so undeserving of said award. It’s been several months sinc

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When candidates lie, what's a political reporter to do?

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Nieman Journalism Lab - By Dan Froomkin - Nov. 30 (Opinion) - How journalists respond to intentional deception will be a defining feature of 2012 political coverage. Will they allow themselves to become accessories to deceptive politicians? Or will they aggressively and repeatedly expose misinformation and the people who traffic in it?

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Restoring Factchecking

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

San Francisco Chronicle - By Craig Newmark - Nov. 29 (Opinion) - Recently, Jeff Jarvis at the City University of NY held an event on restoring factchecking to the news business. He did a really good job getting a bunch of players in this arena to play well together.

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True Or False? Automatic Fact-Checking Coming To The Web – Complications Follow

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

TechCrunch - By Devin Coldewey - Nov. 29 (Opinion) - The social layer has settled on the web like a dusting of multicolored snowflakes, gracing every story with a little menagerie of sharing counts and buttons. Once basic standards of content publishing were established, basic standards of sharing had to be as well, the internet being as it is a medium of information transmission. First you get the content, then you move it around. We’re still working on the moving around part.

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Romney’s Ad ‘Deceitful & Dishonest’?

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Nov. 23 (Fact Check) - The Obama campaign is in a lather over Mitt Romney’s first TV spot, calling it “a deceitful and dishonest attack” because of an edited quote from 2008. That’s a matter of opinion. We find a far more consequential issue is the ad’s exaggerated claim that the new health care law … More >>

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Ex-New York Times Freelancer Natasha Lennard on Quitting the Corporate Media in an Occupy Era

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Nov. 17 (Interview) - We speak with former freelancer at the New York Times, Natasha Lennard, who helped the newspaper cover the initial Occupy protests. She was arrested during the Brooklyn Bridge demonstration while reporting on the event. She no longer freelances for the Times and recently wrote a piece for Salon.com titled "Why I Quit the Mainstream Media." [includes rush transcript]

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Jon Stewart Rips Fox News For Defending Herman Cain (VIDEO)

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Jon Stewart - Nov. 08 (Comedy News) - If there's one thing Jon Stewart knows best, it's how to point out Fox News' follies. He played another round of "find the hypocritical reporting" with the conservative network on Monday night's "Daily Show," this time focusing on their defense of GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain.

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Our Politicians Are Money Launderers Not Too Different from Tony Soprano

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Bill Moyers - Nov. 04 (Speech) - journalism for me has been a continuing course in adult education, and I came early on to consider the work you do as part of the curriculum – an open seminar on how government works – and for whom. Your muckraking investigations – into money and politics, corporate behavior, lobbying, regulatory oversight, public health and safety, openness in government, and consumer protection, among others – are models of accuracy and integrity. They drive home to journalists that while it is important to cover the news, it is more important to uncover the news. As one of my mentors said, “News is what people want to keep hidden; everything else is publicity.”

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The facts about the fact checkers

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Politico - By Ben Smith - Nov. 02 (Opinion) - Mostly true: Roughly half the political universe loves each item churned out by the booming industry of political factchecking. The other half despises it. It just depends whose pants are adjudged to be on fire any given day.

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A discussion about Occupy Wall Street

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Charlie Rose - By Charlie Rose, Chris Hedges, Amy Goodman - Oct. 27 (Opinion) - A discussion about Occupy Wall Street with journalist Chris Hedges and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

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Steve Jobs: Fox News 'A Destructive Force In Our Society'

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Oct. 26 (Review) - Steve Jobs told Rupert Murdoch that Fox News was a "destructive force in our society," according to the blockbuster biography of the late Apple CEO. Poynter was the first to uncover Jobs' blunt words about the network in Walter Isaacson's new book.

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Colbert Nails Rush Limbaugh Over Obama Christian Killing Accusations (VIDEO)

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Stephen Colbert - Oct. 20 (Comedy News) - On Wednesday night's "Report," Stephen Colbert featured a segment on the inflammatory radio host's recent on-air claim that Obama is sending troops to Uganda for the purpose of "wiping out Christians." Explaining that the "Christian" group Lord's Resistance Army promotes an objective "to remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people," Limbaugh left out that the LRA has terrorized the people of Uganda and other countries for over 25 years by abducting children, brainwashing them and forcing them to become sex slaves as well as torturers and executioners.

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