For two days, criminal defense lawyers, sports journalists, law students and journalism majors gathered together at Washington and Lee University to discuss the intersection of sports, the law and the media.
Following on the heels of the much-publicized Journalism Ethics Institute which featured notorious former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, the 3rd annual Media, Courts and the Law Symposium brought its own media and legal powerhouses to the campus for panel discussions about how the media and the law depend on each other when major sports stars get in trouble.
“When sports, the law and the media collide, they create a perfect storm, particularly in a celebrity-obsessed culture such as ours,” read the program bulletin that was distributed to the more than 60 people who attended the first of the two panels on Wednesday.
That panel included Christopher Lyons, the lawyer who defended NFL player Donte Stallworth on a DUI manslaughter charge, Larry Woodward, the defense attorney in Michael Vick’s dog-fighting case, Jackie MacMullan, an ESPN columnist and correspondent, and Lee Hawkins, a Wall Street Journal reporter and on-air contributor for CNBC.
The panelists’ discussion was thought-provoking and honest about the ways in which journalists and criminal defense lawyers rely on each other to attain their goals.
“I’ve certainly used the press to my advantage at times,” said Woodward. MacMullan nodded, adding that as a journalist, its important to cultivate relationships with lawyers. That’s how you get the exclusive story, she said, by putting in the time.
But for me, the most rewarding part of the symposium experience was the dinner after Wednesday’s panel, where journalism and law students were able to spend one-on-one time with the panelists over drinks and dinner. Wall Street Journal reporter Lee Hawkins sat at my table and spent most of the night encouraging my fellow journalism majors and me about breaking into the news business.
I think it’s a time of great opportunity for young,ambitious journalists, Hawkins said. Hawkins pointed out that convergence is second nature to young reporters and encouraged us to develop our skills for all media – print, broadcast and online.
Really, when it comes down to is, Hawkins said, you’re all about your clips. Read everything, fact check everything, put in the extra time on the front end before you start writing – if you have good clips and multimedia skills, you’re going to find a job, he said.
But he also advised the “print” journalists at the table to focus on metropolitan papers rather than the “big guys” like the New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
Start small, read everything, he said.
“Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is Christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For everything that is given, something is taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.”
Creators of News?
Ahh, online journalism ethics.
Yesterday, my conversation with the managing editor of the Athens Banner Herald sputtered to a stop of “ums, ahs, yes, that’s a conundrum…” when she presented me with one of those headache-worthy questions about online journalism:
“With all those user comments, how do you keep from becoming a creator of news rather than just a reporter of news?”
She’s been dealing with this question since the Banner-Herald published an online story about a girl (they didn’t name her) who said she was sexually assaulted. The girl wanted to press charges. The story collected many user comments – people had a lot of opinions and questions about the potential case.
By the end of the day, the girl had dropped the charges.
The Banner-Herald managing editor said her stomach turned as she thought about the possibility that this girl had read all those user comments, realized how difficult defending her sexual history might be and decided not to pursue the case.
Hence the question: “With all those user comments, how do you keep from becoming a creator of news rather than just a reporter of news?”
And the next: Does it matter?
The girl might not have seen the Banner-Herald story. The story and its darned user comments might have had nothing to do with her decision to drop charges. But what if did? Does it matter?
Most reporters are ambiguous about user comments. Yes, it’s a rush to click on your story link and see a string of thirty comments beneath the tagline. It’s the “you like me! you really like me!” feeling.
Ok, maybe it’s more “you read me! You really read me!” But I digress.
It’s also frustrating to see your story pecked at by anonymous people – these so-called “citizen journalists” who aren’t held to the standards you were when you wrote the story.
As encouraging as it is to see the community engaged and reading the news, comments often devolve into tangential bickering between the users. Sometimes, the arguments have absolutely nothing to do with story. Other times, user comments become a place for personal pontification as users pass judgments about people, things and ideas in the story.
I can imagine what those comments might’ve been on the Banner-Herald story. As a woman, I can imagine how I would’ve felt to see my actions and my accusations put under the community spotlight even before the police investigated.
Was that decision to drop all charges a result of the Banner-Herald story’s user comments? Did the Banner-Herald create the news?
Most papers have developed guidelines for what can and cannot be said in user comments. At the Charlotte Observer, any profanity or “abusive” speech is prohibited. Such comments were deleted and replaced by the notice “User123′s comments are abusive and have been removed.”
But are there stories where user comments shouldn’t be allowed at all?
And if there are, how to determine which ones get the user comment reprieve?
Leave a Comment
Filed under Reverie of a reporter
Tagged as Athens Banner Herald, ethics, online journalism ethics, online media, reporting, The Charlotte Observer, user comments