Tag: ethics

A weird, sad tale comes to an end

At least one chapter in the weird, sad tale of Tania deLuzuriaga has come to an end, as she has resigned from the Boston Globe. As you may know, deLuzuriaga was recently found to have exchanged inappropriate e-mails of a sexual nature with a high-ranking school official when she was a reporter for the Miami Herald.

Journalists know they can’t secretly carry on an affair with people they cover. At the Miami New Times, Kyle Munzenrieder reminds us of the great Abe Rosenthal rule: “You can fuck an elephant if you want to, but if you do you can’t cover the circus.” DeLuzuriaga’s ethical breach was a serious one.

But to the extent that some people at the Globe agitated for her to leave, as Christine McConville reported in the Boston Herald last week, I think her situation raises an ethical question for management, too: Should wrongdoing in a previous job be held against someone if she is performing competently and without incident in her current job?

I’ve done no independent reporting on this, and there may well be issues about which I’m not aware. But assuming deLuzuriaga kept her personal and professional lives separate while she was at the Globe, it strikes me that that should have been good enough.

Gender hypocrisy raises its ugly head, too. As Amy Derjue notes at Boston Daily, and Rick Sawyer observes at Bostonist, deLuzuriaga’s erstwhile and extremely married alleged paramour not only has paid no penalty, he just got a promotion. Nice.

Paper blows pol’s cover

Now here’s an interesting ethical dilemma. James Donahue, a Haverhill city councilor, apparently posted comments on the Eagle-Tribune’s Web site under perhaps as many as 38 different screen names. How do we know this? Because the Eagle-Tribune exposed him last Saturday.

Donahue acknowledged using multiple screen names, but said that at least some of the 38 names traced to his computer were those of supporters hanging around his house. The city’s mayor, James Fiorentini, a frequent recipient of Donahue’s barbs, admitted that he, too, has been known to respond to his critics without revealing his identity.

Here’s the question. Even if you grant that what Donahue did was stupid, was it ethical for the Eagle-Tribune to expose him? There is nothing in the comment box telling you to use your real name. (I’ve posted a few pseudonymous comments at the Salem News’ site — part of the same chain as the Tribune.) It seems to me that the Tribune used proprietary information to embarrass Donahue, and without giving him fair warning that he was doing anything wrong.

It’s not clear exactly how the Tribune tracked Donahue down. The comment box does ask for a valid e-mail address. But the story says the posts were tracked to “Donahue’s personal computer,” which makes me think someone traced the messages to his IP address. If Google had done this, there would be an uproar.

The paper defends its outing in an editorial, saying in part:

It is not the general practice of this newspaper to seek the identity of those who comment on stories, although there is no explicit guarantee of anonymity. Virtually all the management of the comments section of the online edition is aimed at removing posts that are profane, racist or personal attacks.

However, one of the forum moderators noticed a pattern of posts under dozens of different names, and then discovered that they had all come from the same computer address. When it became clear that they were coming from the computer of an elected public official, it became our obligation to let the public know.

The average citizen does not take an oath to serve the public. An elected official does. An attempt to deceive the public is clearly not serving it, and a public official who does so is not only undeserving of the protection of confidentiality, but deserves public criticism.

Now Donahue’s in trouble with his fellow councilors. And I would imagine there’s going to be some awkwardness, at the very least, over his job as a teacher at a public school. (“What kind of an example … ?”)

I’m not sure I buy the Eagle-Tribune’s argument. It seems to me that the paper has chosen to humiliate Donahue for doing something the paper itself implicitly invited him to do, and that it used information available to no one else. If the Tribune had caught Donahue doing the same thing on, say, a non-Tribune blog, that would be fine. But this comes pretty close to entrapment, does it not?

I’m still pondering this, though, and would be curious to hear from Media Nation readers what you think. I promise not to trace your IP addresses. I guarantee you that I wouldn’t know how.

Old ethics and new media (VI)

Howard Owens, GateHouse Media’s director of digital publishing, has responded to YouTube’s decision to remove the Beverly Citizen’s controversial video of the “Horribles” parade.

According to Owens, YouTube acted after receiving a complaint from someone whose face was visible in the video. Apparently YouTube has a privacy policy under which it will take down a video at literally anyone’s request. Owens sums it up as follows:

We simply cannot allow YouTube, or any other business partner, to subvert our editorial independence. If YouTube wants to get in the game of hosting video for established news organizations — which it is doing — then it needs to respect the editorial judgment and independence of the news professionals in those organizations. If YouTube is unwilling be a true media partner, then, at least for GateHouse, we will need to seek alternative means of distribution of our videos.

Now, it’s easy enough to say that YouTube should act as a common carrier, similar to the phone company, and carry any traffic that comes its way, regardless of content. As a free-speech advocate, I would much prefer a policy like that.

But it’s not that simple. YouTube is successful in part because it does a good job of keeping out pornography and graphic violence. It’s the PG-13 nature of YouTube that makes it an attractive venue for media companies like GateHouse in the first place.

On the other hand, Owens is absolutely right that if the folks at YouTube are going to remove news videos arbitrarily, then there’s no way a news organization can do business with them.

I haven’t changed my mind about the video — I still would have edited it to remove the eight-foot-long penis and some of the more offensive signs. But that has to be the news organization’s call, not that of the service hosting the video.

I realize this post is entirely one-sided, and I hope YouTube has something to say. Soon.

Wednesday morning update: An unnamed YouTube spokeswoman tells the Boston Herald that the video was “inappropriate,” but leaves it at that.

Old ethics and new media (V)

Looks like GateHouse Media has taken matters into its own hands.

If you go to the Beverly Citizen’s “Horribles” parade story now, you’ll see that the video featuring the eight-foot-long water-spouting penis and the crude signs is back online.

The difference: The video is now hosted by Veoh Networks rather than YouTube.

Old ethics and new media (III)

In a weird coda to the controversy over the Beverly Farms “Horribles” parade, a source has informed Media Nation that YouTube has removed the video. Have a look at the Beverly Citizen’s story. When you click on the video, you’ll receive a message that says, “We’re sorry, this video is no longer available.”

The GateHouse Media papers, like many smaller enterprises, uses YouTube as a free, easy-to-use publishing platform. Editors upload their videos to YouTube, then embed the code on their own sites. But it looks like publishers who wish to control their content are going to have to figure out a way to do it themselves.

A non-disclosure disclosure

The Boston Globe today runs an op-ed piece urging passage of a free-trade agreement with Colombia. The piece, by Marc Grossman, is reasoned and nuanced, celebrating Colombia’s rescue of 15 hostages last week while acknowledging that the government of President Álvaro Uribe must continue to improve its human-rights record.

But there’s a hidden agenda. The tagline states that Grossman is a vice chairman of the Cohen Group, and is a former undersecretary of state. That’s a pretty weak disclosure. In fact, a little Googling reveals that the Cohen Group, founded by former secretary of defense William Cohen, helps private clients do business internationally. Here’s the lowdown, taken directly from the Cohen Group’s Web site:

The Cohen Group (TCG) assists clients to navigate the political and business landscape in Latin America.

Secretary Cohen and TCG principals have developed and maintain strong ties with political, business, military, and media officials throughout Latin America that can help to accomplish client business objectives in the region. Our understanding of and relationships in the region have enabled TCG to assist numerous firms in the U.S., Spain and elsewhere in Europe that have business interests in Latin America….

Ambassador Marc Grossman, as Under Secretary of State until 2005, worked directly with leaders from across the region on a broad range of political, economic and security issues. For his efforts to promote democracy and fight narcoterrorism in Colombia, he was awarded Colombia’s highest civilian honor, the Order of San Carlos.

An opinion piece such as Grossman’s is worthless if it’s not independent. The Cohen Group would benefit mightily from a free-trade deal with Colombia. Surely there are experts who could have made the case as effectively as Grossman without being tainted by their future earnings being tied up in the outcome of the free-trade debate.

Old ethics and new media (II)

The comments to my earlier post have transformed this into a substantive, productive conversation about journalism and standards in the new-media age. You’ll find intelligent posts on all sides of the issue, from outraged readers to GateHouse Media editors and executives.

I’m humbled by how much better the quality of the discussion is compared to my original post. As Dan Gillmor likes to say, “My readers know more than I do.”

Old ethics and new media

Let’s say some local yahoos decide to rent a truck, bolt a giant model of a penis to the front (complete with squirting water!) and festoon the sides of the truck with messages so crude and offensive that I’m not going to quote them.

Let’s say they decide to enter the truck as a float in a parade that is attended by hundreds of families and children.

Let’s say, further, that the people on the float decide it would be a fun idea to throw condoms at the crowd.

Of course, you already know this is not a hypothetical.

There are many ways of looking at the fallout from the “Horribles” parade in Beverly Farms, which featured three floats — including the one I just described — that made fun of the Gloucester High School pregnancy story.

Here’s another angle: the responsibility of community journalists, who are no longer armed just with a notebook and a pen but with video cameras as well.

The Beverly Citizen, a GateHouse Media paper, is in the spotlight because of a video that it posted showing all the highlights and lowlights, including some close-ups of the aforementioned penis and the signs.

Does the video go too far? I’ll take a cue from the Citizen itself. The news story, by Bobby Gates, is almost prissy in its description of the controversy. Not a single offensive sign is quoted from. As for the float, the story rather clinically refers to a “large, realistically shaped phallic symbol spraying water from the front of a truck.”

Even more out of sync with the video is a post on the Citizen’s blog that asserts the floats “went over the line” by mocking teenage girls. The signs? “And I won’t even go into the signs on the floats, which were lewd at best.” Well, OK. But the blog post was written by “dmacalpine.” And the video was shot by Dan Mac Alpine, whose camera hovered so seductively over the very signs that he (or maybe it was his doppelgänger?) didn’t think he could quote in his newspaper’s blog.

I’m not sure what the lesson is here. I do know that quick-and-cheap video is posing a challenge to community journalists, who are finding themselves embroiled in controversy for shooting footage of subjects that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if they merely described them in writing. That was the case at another GateHouse paper, the Somerville Journal, a few months ago, when its video of the Naked Quad Run at Tufts University sparked discussion and even outrage.

The current, situation, though, is different, as the Citizen is traveling much further in its video than it dares go in its written description. I’m not sure what to make of that.

Let me go back to my original question: Does the video go too far? I think it does. I haven’t checked, but I am confident that neither the squirting penis nor the worst of the signs made it on to any of the local television newscasts. I know that both were left on the cutting-room floor in a news video I watched at the Fox 25 Web site, and it’s probably safe to say that no one is going to go beyond our friends at Fox.

Except, it seems, the Beverly Citizen.

Look, it happened. Hundreds of people saw it. Hundreds more heard about it. There’s no sense in pretending otherwise. But if they didn’t think they should quote from the signs, then they shouldn’t have showed them in the video. As for the penis — well, let just say I think the written description was sufficient.

The folks at GateHouse are not bad people. They’re hard-working journalists trying to find their way in a news landscape that’s changing by the day. I’d rather see them taking too many chances than too few. I’m neither horrified nor offended by what they did. But I do think they made the wrong call in this case.

Update: The Salem News runs a front-page photo of the penis-bearing truck in its print edition. But unless you’ve seen the video, it’s impossible to figure out what you’re looking at. Here’s the News’ story.

Life imitates art

Medill School of Journalism professor David Protess, on suspicions that Medill dean John Lavine may have piped a few quotes from anonymous students in an in-house magazine article: “I am not alleging that the dean fabricated quotes. I am alleging that it is inaccurate to say there is no evidence that he did not fabricate quotes.” (Via Romenesko.)

Slate columnist Michael Kinsley, lampooning the New York Times’ hair-splitting defense of its “anonymous former aides think John McCain might have had sex” story: “What I wrote was that some people had expressed concern that the Times article might have created the appearance of charging that McCain had had an affair. My critics have charged that I was charging the Times with charging McCain with having had an affair.”