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Citizen Investigative Reporter in Hot Water

Free-agent investigative reporter James O’Keefe has switched professions from pimp to telephone repairman. O’Keefe gained fame (or notoriety) last year when he posed as a pimp to record ACORN employees advocating illegal and unethical practices. His undercover sting won him praise from conservatives who have long suspected ACORN and led to congress cutting off funding for the community organization with links to Obama.

However, O’Keefe’s  use of undercover cameras and deception raised red flags for journalism’s leading ethicists. Journalists have a long-standing tradition of investigative reporting practices, but they also have strict guidelines that must be followed to avoid the pitfalls associated with this ethically gray area.

Now, it appears, O’Keefe’s questionable practices have landed him in hot water. Yesterday O’Keefe and several of his partners were arrested on charges of tampering with phones at Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office. While we do not yet know their motives, there may be a tie to the healthcare reform deal that Landrieu struck with her Democratic partners. The deal reportedly gained her state millions in additional Medicare funds in exchange for her vote of support.

What’s the lesson for students of journalism? As exciting as investigative reporting may appear on TV, the practice of investigative journalism is a lot more difficult, tedious, and boring than it seems. To do it right, you’ve got to spend a lot of time ensuring that your methods do not cross the line that separates good journalism from shoddy and unethical vigilantism. One more thing…if you want to be a citizen journalist, best to focus on straight news reporting for awhile and leave the investigative reporting to seasoned journalists who understand the ethical issues involved.

P.S.  The name of O’Keefe’s video company is Veritas Visuals. We’ll have to wait and see if veritas (Latin for truth) comes to his defense!

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Justice Department Argues for Stiff Fines for Copyright Violations

In a legal brief filed this week the Obama administration argued that a judgment of $675,000 for copyright infringement is not unconstitutional. The defendant, Joe Tenenbaum, is accused of illegally sharing 30 tracks. In their argument the DOJ recognized that the stiff penalties serve the purpose of deterring millions of users from taking a chance when it comes to file sharing and illegal downloading. The DOJ earlier supported a $1.92 million fine against Jammie Thomas-Rasset for sharing 24 tracks.

Of more than 18,000 individuals sued by the Recording Industry Association of America since 2003, only Tenebaum and Thomas-Rasset opted for a jury trial. The others simply paid four-figure settlements rather than face litigation and the risk of huge damage awards.

Because of a public relations backlash, the RIAA discontinued its campaign to prosecute illegal file sharing in December of 2008. Instead they have begun working with ISPs who, they hope, will provide disincentives for those who share files illegally.

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Want to Work in the Media?

A new study released this week by CareerCast.com, and reported in the WSJ, evaluates 200 professions to determine the best and worst according to five criteria: environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress. Of course these are somewhat subjective criteria and your experience may be quite different from those reported by CareerCast.

So just how did the media-related professions stack up against the competition? Well, let’s look first at the very best and very worst jobs out there. At the top of the list are three math-related professions: mathematician (#1), actuary (#2), and statistician (#3…Audience Research students, please note this one!). The worst? Lumberjack (#200), dairy farmer (#199), and taxi driver (#198).

A quick scan for media jobs yields a wide range on the scale of 1-200. Here they are from best to worst.

  • #19 Motion Picture Editor
  • #23 Web Developer
  • #31 Publication Editor
  • #44 Market Research Analyst
  • #75 Newscaster
  • #79 Advertising Account Executive
  • #108 DJ
  • #112 Public Relations Executive
  • #140 Reporter (newspaper), Janitor is #141
  • #167 Photojournalist

Data used to determine the ranking came from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau, as well as other sources.

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Idol’s New Season Starts Tonight

American Idol has been a huge success for the Fox TV network. Year after year at first place in the ratings, AI continues to dominate prime time TV. That kind of success yields substantial revenue. A 30-second spot on Idol nets Fox over $600,000. That and product placement deals with Coke, Ford, AT&T, iTunes and others makes this franchise a gold mine.

Earlier today I asked my Media & Society students why they think American Idol is such a hit with viewers and they offered up several very insightful responses.

  1. Viewers are able to participate in the potential rags-to-riches story line of contestants…seeing themselves as potentially rich and famous if they were just given an opportunity to compete.
  2. We enjoy seeing people make fools of themselves on TV. The Germans have a word for it…schadenfreude, which is translated as pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.
  3. The large contestant pool means that our social network may allow us to know someone who knows someone who is a contestant. The old six-degrees-of-separation meme strikes again!
  4. And, the interactivity and audience participation provided by the text voting gives viewers/voters a sense of ownership.

I think the students came up with some very compelling explanations for the success of American Idol. It will be interesting to see if that success continues. In case you haven’t heard, the big news this season is the planned departure of the acerbic Simon Cowell. Cowell reportedly turned down $144 million per year to stay. Time will tell just how much Simon’s biting commentaries will be missed by fans of the show. What do you think? Is this the beginning of the end for American Idol?

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Social Networking Contest Contains Lessons for News Media

Last week the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the folks responsible for bringing us the Internet, sponsored a contest that may result in some interesting data about how we use social media to gather and disseminate information. The goal of the contest was to provide the location (longitude and latitude) of 10 red, eight-foot-wide weather balloons that had been placed at various locations within the continental US. It took the team from MIT just 9 hours to win the contest, and the $40K prize, using a diverse strategy combining social media collaboration with reward programs. But some of the teams also took a walk on the dark side when they employed deception intended to sidetrack competing teams.

So, what does this have to do with media and journalism? Think of every breaking news story as a contest. The first journalistic team to crack the story and file the report is rewarded with ratings/readership/reputation, etc., all of which translates into monetary rewards for the winning team. How does NBC,  CNN, the BBC, or People Magazine “scoop” the competition when they’re working a breaking story? They may try to buy an “exclusive” interview with a key player. When President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, TX, Dan Rather, a reporter for CBS, became aware of Zapruder’s 8mm film of the assassination. He asked for permission from the top CBS brass to buy the film for $10,ooo, but that turned out to be too little, too late. Zapruder had already sold the film and rights to Life magazine for $150,000! And if you think that’s a lot of money, the 6-foot long strip of celluloid with 494 frames, lasting 26 seconds, was later purchased by the US government for $16 million!

Today, news organizations may use social media networking to mobilize reporters and stringers who work for the news organization and perhaps even try to recruit “citizen journalists” who may have inside information. Twitter and other social media tools can be used to disseminate information and to recruit collaborators.

The DARPA contest may actually provide some insight into the process of collaboration and even intentional deception using social media. Hopefully the news media are above floating fake balloons to try to fool the competition. But sadly, whenever money is at stake there are people willing to bend the rules.

Read more, or listen to the story, at the NPR website.

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Tiger’s Public Transgressions

Many of us wish this story would just go away, but it won’t…so here are a few lessons for students of the media.

#1: ALL celebrity endorsement deals come with some risk. If you had asked executives at Nike, Gatorade, etc. whether there was risk associated with hiring Tiger Woods as a celebrity spokesperson, they likely would have replied that the risk was minimal. But if they thought it was zero, they were wrong. Will it do long-term damage to their brands and to the Tiger Woods brand? It is too soon to tell, but there will be fall out for Tiger and every other celebrity that has a “squeaky clean” image.

#2: Crisis Management PR has changed dramatically in the age of cable news, the blogosphere, and the twitterverse. PR agents have got to get ahead of the story and be much more transparent than in the past. Remember, the media (both traditional and new media) exist to uncover and distribute “dirt” and attempts to stonewall will only compound the problem.

#3: As we’ve been reminded recently by the parents of balloon boy and the White House party crashing Salahi’s, reality TV culture makes people do crazy things for their 15 minutes of fame/notoriety. Anyone remotely “connected” to the Tiger Woods drama will see opportunity to cash in by playing the tabloid media. Releasing cell phone messages and scheduling press conferences strings along the media and extends their window of opportunity.

#4: <editorial warning>There is no such thing as a private “transgression.”</editorial warning>

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One more about Accuracy…for now

apOkay, I don’t want to beat a dead horse or overstay my time on this particular soapbox, but here’s one more article (this one from the AP) that raises serious concerns about recent misfires in major media coverage. The following quote, from the end of the linked article, captures the essence of the change that is sweeping the news business…pushed largely by the 24-hour news cycle of cable TV and the minute-by-minute updating possible on the web.

Nowhere was the new landscape more vividly illustrated than this month when Nick Denton, chief of the irreverent Web site Gawker.com, issued a memo scolding his staff for a few cases “where we’ve thought WAY too much before publishing” a story.

Get something out fast with what we know, Denton wrote. We can always update.

“At some media organizations, you might get rapped for running a premature story,” he wrote. “At Gawker Media, you’ll lose way more points for being scooped on a story you had in your hands.”

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Balloon Boy Makes My Point

hoaxWhen I posted my blog entry about accuracy in the media last week, it was the day before the Balloon Boy story broke. Since then we’ve been served a non-stop drama that started with a young child at risk, progressed to a possible media hoax, and reached a crescendo with apparent criminal charges filed against parents Richard and  Mayumi Heene. The media circus that gave birth to the spectacle is now feeding off of the dead carcass and will continue to do so until all that remains are bleached bones. Would-be actors who craved instant fame got infamy, which they will now try to peddle to unscrupulous reality show producers and tabloid publishers. There’s even an online video game based on the whole sordid affair. The one bright spot in all of this, if there is one, is that Colorado law prevents criminals from profiting from their criminal actions. Forgive me if I come across as harsh and skeptical…but perhaps a healthy dose of skepticism was what was needed last Friday.

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Accuracy of News Media

One of the most sacred tenets of journalism is under fire. Recent surveys point to disturbing trends with regard to perceived accuracy and demand for accuracy from our news media.

According to recent findings by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, the public’s assessment of the accuracy of news is at its lowest level in more than two decades. Less than 30% of Americans surveyed believe that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate. That is a dramatic reversal from 1985 when 55% said news stories were accurate while 34% said they were inaccurate.

What may be more disturbing is the view, held by some, that consumers of web news prefer speed over accuracy.  According to consultants to The Columbus Dispatch, readers prefer getting the information sooner rather than later, even if it means that there is a greater chance that the information is inaccurate. These ideas–that readers want to be “part of the reporting process” and “over time, the truth will come out”–are at odd with one of the sacred cows of journalism.  The mantra has been repeated over and over…you’ve got to get it fast, but you’ve got to get it right. Does that mean that you wait to publish until you’re 99.9% sure of the accuracy of your story? That may depend on whether you want to be known for scoops or for consistently reliable information. If you’re an old-school journalist it may be that your commitment to accuracy is what sets you apart from the bloggers, citizen journalists, and advocates who are willing to take more risks.

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