What is truth?

SPJ Code of Ethics:

Seek Truth and Report It

RTDNA Broadcasters Code:Strive to present news in a

way that is balanced, accurate and fair. Reject

sensationalism or misleading emphasis in any form.

PRSA Core Principle:Protecting and advancing the

free flow of accurate and truthful information is essential to serving the public interest and contributing to informed

decision making in a democratic society.

AAAA:We will not knowingly create

advertising that contains false or misleading statements or

exaggerations, visual or verbal

What is memorable and is handed down

Ancient Greeks

What abides in the world of perfect forms

Plato

What the king, Church, or God says

Medieval

What emerges from the “marketplace of ideas”

Milton

What is verifiable, replicable, universal

Enlightenment

What is filtered through individual perception

Pragmatist

OBJECTIVITY:A mechanism that allows journalists to divorce fact

from opinion.

Journalists use objectivity to filter out their own personal

biases to influence what they report or how they cover it

Objectivity also allows news to be read by people with

multiple political opinions.

Questions that challenge objectivity

Who writes the news matters

“For the most part, we do not first see, and then define, we

define first and then see.”

Walter Lippmann

News is a manufactured product, with storylines,

narratives, characters and graphics.

Ethical news values:AccuracyTenacityDignity

Reciprocity

SufficiencyEquity

Community Diversity

Challenges for print journalists:

Choice of storiesChoice of placement

Newseum Front Pages

More challenges:

Choice of headlineChoice of photograph

(Elian Gonzalez example)

Challenges, continued:

Choice of lead and frameChoice of sourcesNew York Times

Los Angeles TimesSan Francisco Chronicle