Recent discourse has taken place on Twitter concerning journalism ethics.
This was prompted by the uncovering of an email exchange between ESPN’s Adam Schefter and the Washington Football Team’s former president Bruce Allen, according to the NBC Sports’ ProFootballTalk website.
The website states Schefter sent an unpublished article to Allen , asking him to “please let me know if you see anything that should be added, changed, tweaked.”
Some journalists, such as the Action Network’s Darren Rovell took to Twitter to defend him: “Give me a break. While it’s not exactly the best of journalism practices, we’ve all done this in the name of accuracy.”
Although he would later take back what he initially said, the response of a majority of journalists was clear:
No, we do not all do “this.”
One of the very first lessons taught in journalism is the basics of ethics, and not sending people unpublished articles comes with the territory.
Ethical journalists continue to fight for people to see that real journalism still exists and people like these who make these claims are making it that much harder for the public to respect our jobs.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told people I am going into journalism and they responded, “Oh, so you’re going to make stuff up.” Or if I told someone I was struggling to get interviews for an article, they would tell me to just make up what someone said.
The public lacks respect for us, when the majority follow those very basic ethics guidelines we were taught on our first day of class.
For those of you planning on going into journalism, do not be discouraged by those who may talk down about journalism.
And know that we do not send our unpublished articles to anybody except our editor.
There are many resources out there for those curious about journalism ethics.
The Society of Professional Journalists is one of the most popular with a whole list dedicated to our best practices.
You can download it for free in the form of a flyer, poster, and two-sided bookmark.
The website hosts countless other related resources, as well.
Though much of Twitter’s response to Rovell was hilarious, journalism ethics is no joke.
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