Ethics

Will a new libel defence bring business to self-styled experts in media practice? As Rhiannon Russell reports, that’s been the case in Quebec, and the rest of Canada may follow suit.

Where will trust come from in the future of public media? News organizations are beginning to create new, integrated ethical guidelines as they move into the digital age. It is in this age that we need an understanding of public journalism that goes beyond traditional forms, such as radio and television. Stephen Ward takes a look at this issue, and tells us why it is important that public media has the trust of the people it serves. 

The publishers of community newspapers are often accused of giving in to advertisers' pressure on editorial content. According to Micah Luxen, the Kelowna Daily Courier and its Westside Weekly supplement are cases in point. After quitting her job as the Weekly's editor last summer, Luxen sent J-Source her account of interactions with ad representatives and with her boss, Courier managing editor Jon Manchester. She also provided secretly made sound recordings of conversations with Manchester, and copies of the emails. We invited Manchester to write a rebuttal, and he agreed without hesitation. We also fact-checked the two columns and what you see here represents our best understanding of those facts that are not in dispute, and the two journalists' perspectives on those that are.  

In recognition of the obligations of journalists to pursue accuracy and to be accountable for their work, the Canadian Association of Journalists’ Principles for Ethical Journalism states: “When we make a mistake, we correct it promptly and ungrudgingly, and in a manner that matches the seriousness of the error.” This is not a new idea, but digital publishing raises new challenges for defining best practices in corrections. Accordingly, the Ethics Advisory Committee of the CAJ asked this panel to propose best practices in digital accuracy and corrections as a follow-up to this same committee’s 2010 work on unpublishing digital content. That earlier report asserted three key principles about unpublishing from which this work on digital accuracy and corrections builds.