Show for Oct. 31, 2010: Journalistic Ethics In Focus
NPR recently fired news analyst Juan Williams after his controversial comments about Muslims on Fox News’ O’ Reilly Factor. The sturm und drang that followed cast the incident as a political clash—pitting right-wing Fox against lefty NPR, and straight-talking Williams against the forces of political correctness. But NPR says the matter comes down to principles of journalistic responsibility, which draw a hard line between reportage/analysis (appropriate for newspeople) and editorializing (a no-no).
In this edition of the show, we examine journalistic ethics in light of the Williams affair, asking whether news organizations need to better enforce traditional rules or if it’s time to lighten up. Guests include Alicia Shepard, NPR ombudsman; Kevin Smith, ethics chair of the Society of Professional Journalists; Tom Goldstein, professor of journalism at U.C. Berkeley; James Rainey, On the Media columnist for the Los Angeles Times; and Judy Muller of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Click the “play” arrow above to listen, or download the MP3 here.
- Watch the O’ Reilly Factor segment in which Juan Williams made his remarks. (Shorter videos are available on YouTube, but this longer one on the Fox News site provides more context.) Williams fires back at NPR after his dismissal.
- Read the NPR ethics code.
- Read the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics.
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