Since the terrorist attack against the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo (Jan. 7), in which 12 individuals were murdered, there’s been no shortage of opinion writers denouncing the assault as an attack on freedom of expression. But can satire go too far? Dictionary.com defines satire as “the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or...

“Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.” – Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics Robert “Alex” Green, reporter and editor of the Bryan College newspaper, The Triangle, said that his teachers taught him to tell the truth, and that’s what he did. After the Christian school officials killed his story detailing that one of...

On Monday, Columbia University announced the 2014 recipients of the Pulitzer Prize, journalism’s most prestigious honor. Chris Hamby of The Center for Public Integrity – a Washington, DC-based non-profit – was awarded a Pulitzer for his report, Breathless and Burdened, on “how some lawyers and doctors rigged a system to deny benefits to coal miners stricken with black lung disease, resulting...

On Monday April 14, it was announced that the Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspapers shared the 2014 Pulitzer Prize, journalism’s highest award, in the area of public service for their reporting on the National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program. However, the documents supplied to both the Post and Guardian were leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Last June,...

According to a survey conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind, “What you know depends on what you watch.” “NPR and Sunday morning political talk shows,” the report says, “are the most informative news outlets, while exposure to partisan sources, such as Fox News and MSNBC, has a negative impact on people’s current events knowledge.” This follow-up report, completed in May, 2012, confirms the initial findings from a...

Continuing my look back at some stories that were, initially, major political and media firestorms, but facts later proved them to be less reliable than first believed. More on Benghazi – Wednesday’s release of the long-awaited Senate Intelligence Committee report on the assault on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya revealed more pertinent information. The Washington Post reported (Jan. 15) that “The...

Earlier this month, I revisited the case of NSA leaker Edward Snowden. At the time, I wrote, “There is a very real problem… when factual information is incomplete because a story is still evolving…” I thought I’d take a look at some past stories that were, initially, major political and media firestorms, but facts later proved them to be less...

All of us make mistakes, but the test of an ethical individual and organization is how they handle the aftermath of those mistakes. Last Friday (Nov. 8), CBS News reporter Lara Logan went on CBS This Morning show with an admission. “The most important thing to every person at 60 Minutes is the truth, and today the truth is that we made a...

CSI is a CBS-TV crime drama that follows “Crime Scene Investigators” – like William Peterson, Ted Danson, Elizabeth Shue and others – as they solve murders using science and analytical skills. ESI is my own ethical-sense investigative process used in researching and examining stories like the three-part series, Conspiracy Theory. (Think of me as Ted Danson… with darker hair.) The purpose of...

Early in All the President’s Men – a film that follows Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein track down and piece together the 1972 Watergate scandal – there’s a moment where editor Harry Rosenfeld is listening to Woodward read through a list of the five men caught in the break-in at the Watergate complex. When Woodward mentions that one of the...