When mass shootings take place, the media rush to publish details on the suspect’s background. But is that approach one that does more harm than good?
- Associate Professor of Communications, Penn State
The former Fox News CEO crossed the line between unbiased coverage and political activism with ease.
When Gay Talese signed a confidentiality agreement with a motel-owning voyeur, he got access to the voyeur’s journals and secret viewing perch. But he also allowed the spying to continue for over a decade.
Two ESPN NFL reporters ordered in on New Year’s Eve. They just didn’t tell anyone they’d been paid to do so.
The media repeatedly creates instant profiles of public shooters as shy, troubled loners, perpetuating the sense of helplessness over mass killings.
Mainstream media and social media go different ways on the ethical questions raised by the airing of video showing on-camera shooting of journalists.
The news media are a major presence in the Baltimore riots. Are they providing an accurate picture of what’s going on?
If a guy kills three of his neighbors over a parking spot, it’s a local story, maybe a national news brief. Its newsworthiness is predicated on the appalling flimsiness of the casus belli: Some folks are…
Longtime New Yorker magazine staff writer Lillian Ross once admonished aspiring reporters not to write about themselves. “As a reporter, serve your subject,” she wrote, “do not serve yourself. Do not…
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