“An organization has obtained secret documents. They are newsworthy, but they could be damaging as well, to national interests and individuals. “Do you publish?” That was the opening to a Wall Street Journal article (Nov. 29) discussing the question placed before several major news organizations, including the Journal, last week when WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to publishing via the Internet and a...

When should secrets be exposed?  When should they be kept secret and who decides? Those are the ethical questions involved in the recent disclosure of 251,287 confidential U.S. embassy cables – daily reports – intended for senior officials at the State Department by the self-styled, whistle-blowing authority, WikiLeaks. In the case of the break in at the Watergate office complex...

Last month, Gawker.com posted a story about how Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell allegedly spent a randy Halloween night several years ago with a man she had just met. The site’s owner acknowledged that it paid the anonymous source $4,000 for his first-person account. Several other major news sites picked up the story. Deadspin.com paid about $12,000 for voicemails and photos of quarterback...

MSNBC opinionate Keith Olbermann was suspended last week for having violated the political donation provision in the company’s standards by contributing donations totaling $7,200 to three Democratic politicians he had supported on his show. Olbermann returned to his regular Tuesday night slot withoutapologizing to the network. He did, however, offer a written apology to his fans for “having precipitated such anxiety and...

Last Sunday (July 25), The New York Times released their findings on some 92,000 secret documents detailing a variety of information from the last six years of the war in Afghanistan The secret reports were posted online by WikiLeaks.org whose goal, writes The Times, “is to reveal ‘unethical behavior’ by governments and corporations.” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told The Times that the documents show “not only the severe incidents...

After a week of sensational claims, a resignation, revelations, apologies, non-apologies, and hype surrounding wrongful allegations of racism against Shirley Sherrod, three points emerge: Point 1. Andrew Breitbart, the faux journalist who broke the story of Sherrod’s faux racism refused to apologize after the truth came out.  While most of the media did a 180, includingFox’s Bill O’Reilly, Breitbart played the...

“The primary purpose of journalism,” write Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in their book, The Elements of Journalism, “is to provide citizens with information they need to be free and self-governing.” However, the notion of a “free press” has taken on additional consequences with the explosion of information in an electronic age. “Certainly, the notion of the press as a gatekeeper,”...

Winston Churchill famously said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” I’m not sure exactly when he said that, but with the presence of the Internet, I’m positive the time frame has been reduced to a nanosecond. One of the best resources for questions concerning journalism’s purpose and responsibility is the Pew...

Picking up my newspapers last Thursday, I’m walking back to the front door when a front page story on the Wall Street Journal grabs me by the throat – Little Dog Caught in Big Estate Feud. Is this the Journal or an accidental delivery of The National Inquirer? What’s the deal with rich, old widows who die and leave millions to their pets?   » Read more about:...

“Just because the microphone in front of you amplifies your voice around the world is no reason to think we have any more wisdom than we had when our voices could reach only from one end of the bar to the other.” —Edward R. Murrow During the pioneering days of broadcast journalism, Ed Murrow was the gold standard of journalists. Known...