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...

Who was Michael Hastings and why would anyone want to assassinate him? Author-Journalist Michael Hastings was a reporter for the Internet based website, BuzzFeed and contributing editor to Rolling Stone magazine. Hastings profile rose after an interview he conducted with General Stanley McChrystal in which the four-star general was both candid and critical of individuals in the Obama administration. Hastings himself spoke...

“Evidence Indicates Michael Hastings Was Assassinated” “Hastings Sent Chilling E-mail to Colleagues Before Death” “Did the Pentagon Murder Journalist Michael Hastings?” Those are just a few of the story links that stood at the top of a Google search I conducted into the death of Michael Hastings. I’m not in the habit of running down conspiracy theories that are suggested...

It’s been ten years since New York Times reporter Jayson Blair was caught having “lied and faked and cheated his way through story after story — scores of them, for years,” The Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan writes (May 4). It was the first, and hopefully, last time I ever saw a newspaper list story after story by Blair for four, full...

I’ve written before how, in an effort to be first, some journalists will report on a story without thoroughly checking a number of source points. However, when the story is reported live, in the middle of an ongoing crisis, the consequences to one’s credibility can be harsh. CNN National Correspondent John King’s credibility came into question when he was one of...

According to a recent Gallup poll (July 10) “Confidence in newspapers is now half of what it was at its peak of 51% in 1979.” However, I recently came across an example where a reporter remained committed to doing the right thing in spite of professional and social pressures. With people closing in on the identity of Deep Throat – the mystery...

In order to understand why some in the media don’t like the new HBO series The Newsroom, here’s how TIME magazine’s James Poniewozik began his review: “The fourth episode of Aaron’s Sorkin’s The Newsroom is called ‘I’ll Try to Fix You.’ That may as well be the title of the whole series. Like Sorkin’s The West Wing, the show wants to fix America,  » Read more...