Category / Work / Ethics

Kirk LaPointe has been busy.  The CBC Ombudsman has recently released five new reports. You can download and read them in full from the CBC Ombudsman website, but here are some summaries.

Tom Kent's memo is clear: Tweeting opinions on issues in the news is a definite no-no. 

The most recent edition to the years-long hacked phones scandal in the United Kingdom shows the need for greater accountability in news everywhere, argues today’ editorial in The Globe and Mail.

In just one year, Bart Brouwers has grown Dutch hyperlocal Dichtbij’s (meaning “close by” or “close to me”) website network to 85 communities from just three. It’s been fast, he told European Centre of Journalism reporter Alexandru-Brdu Ulmanu, but the trick is to keep a balance between opportunities and costs. To Brouwers, part of that…

By now, you’ve probably read, or heard, Const. Garrett Style’s SOS call. Many media outlets (the Toronto Star, Canadian Press, CBC, CTV News…) made the decision last week to print, or broadcast, all or part of the dying officer’s radio dispatch as he lay trapped under an overturned minivan. But was it the right decision?

CBC Ombudsman Kirk LaPointe recently announced the release of two reviews, and his agreement to conduct three more.

Is chequebook journalism resurfacing? Check out CBC Ombudsman Kirk LaPointe’s blog, themediamanager.com, which highlights two recent cases in the States. In one case, ABC paid a woman who received texts from congressman Anthony Weiner, and in another payments were made to a woman who had been held captive for 18 years in California. Both The…

Earlier this week, Margaret Somerville, director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law and McGill University, wrote a story for online news publication The Mark questioning whether journalists made a mistake when they identified baby Storm — a Toronto child whose sex is known only to seven people, including the parents, and whose story…

What happens when you put dozens of public editors from around the world into the same room? Plenty of fascinating discussion on ethics, lessons learned, and the changing media landscape. We joined the ombuds in Montreal and live-blogged the event.

In case you missed it, or haven’t had a chance to read the full report yet, here are the top 10 takeaways from the recently released American Society of News Editors guide to crafting social media policies.