This article examines the requirements for ethical press apologias, defined as attempts to defend credibility when accused of ethical failure. Facing changing transparency expectations, apologists may fail to fully respond to injured stakeholders. Criticisms of CBS News' flawed report on President Bush's National Guard service illustrated this problem. Hearit's (2005b) paradigm for ethical apologias is applied to ?RatherGate? to see if and where the paradigmatic criteria fell short. A revised paradigm is proposed.

The purpose of this study is to see how Jon Stewart and his Daily Show colleagues hold traditional broadcast media accountable. This paper suggests Stewart is holding those who claim they are practicing journalism accountable to the public they claim to serve and outlines the normative implications of that accountability. There is a journalistic norm that media practitioners, and the media as a whole, should be accountable to the public. Here, accountability “refers to the process by which media are called (...) to account for meeting their obligations” (McQuail, 1997, p. 515). However, the government cannot enforce this accountability due to privileges afforded to the press by the First Amendment. Further, while national press councils have been effective in other countries, specifically India, there is no national press council in the United States. Enforcing accountability, then, falls to journalists—along with press critics. The researchers suggest that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart holds traditional broadcast media accountable in four distinct ways. (shrink)

Some have suggested that Jon Stewart of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (TDS) and Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report (TCR) represent a new kind of journalist. We propose, rather, that Stewart and Colbert are imitators who do not fully inhabit the role of journalist. They are interesting because sometimes they do a better job performing the functions of journalism than journalists themselves. However, Stewart and Colbert do not share journalists' moral commitments. Therefore, their performances are neither motivated nor (...) constrained by these commitments. Using a virtue theory framework, we suggest that this distinction between journalists and their imitators is morally significant because it implies differences in the kinds of excellence these moral agents are pursuing in their work. Rather than evaluating the work of Colbert and Stewart in the role of journalists, we propose analyzing their contributions to media ethics in the role of media critics. (shrink)

As a result of simultaneous developments, including the proliferation of opportunities for online feedback, the application of discourse ethics to journalism, and a greater emphasis on journalistic accountability, the time is ripe for revisiting opportunities that online mechanisms provide for holding journalists accountable to audiences. This paper proposes recommendations to guide hosting online comments in light of the Habermasian framework of discourse ethics developed by Glasser and Ettema (2008). It also explores the limits of such approaches in nations with different (...) press models, such as the development model as practiced in China. (shrink)

This case study examines how journalists at Britain's Guardian newspaper and affiliated Web site are assessing and incorporating user-generated content in their perceptions and practices. A framework of existentialism helps highlight constructs and professional norms of interest. It is one of the first data-driven studies to explore how journalists are negotiating personal and social ethics within a digital network.

As trust in the news media continues to decline, news organizations must find ways to bolster that trust, often in the face of diminishing budgets and dwindling bottom lines. Can trust support and even bolster economic success in news organizations? We offer a multidimensional model of trust that takes into account, among other elements, considerations of risk and scope, and suggest that journalistic excellence and economic success can support each other and result in increased public trust in news media.

On November 2019, the world commemorated the 30th anniversary of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child. The UNCRC noted that “the press and other media have essential fu...

Using the recommendations of the Commission on Freedom of the Press, we ask today's media consumers how they rate the performance of modern American journalism. We employ original survey data collected from journalism students at a major Midwest university, framing our findings in the context of the commission's 1947 recommendations. The result is presentation of contemporary opinions about the performance of American media in the context of journalism ideals articulated more than 60 years ago.

This study examines the use of names in the construction of “credibility” as a journalistic duty. Using the framework set forth by Tuchman (1972) of objectivity as a “strategic ritual,” the study discusses the ethical justifications put forth by the New York Times for the process through which it decided to identify a CIA interrogator who had been involved in questioning 9/11 captives. The examination concludes that the facticity of naming should ultimately be uncoupled from the concept of credibility.

Comedy can hold political actors accountable, for instance through satire. But what kind of moral negotiation concerns comedians? Utilizing an understanding of accountability as a dynamic of intera...