Category Archives: Ethics in the News

Did Sports Illustrated publish AI-generated content under bylines of non-existent authors with fake bios?

According to a second person involved in the creation of the Sports Illustrated content who also asked to be kept anonymous, that’s because it’s not just the authors’ headshots that are AI-generated. At least some of the articles themselves, they said, were churned out using AI as well.

“The content is absolutely AI-generated,” the second source said, “no matter how much they say that it’s not.”

After we reached out with questions to the magazine’s publisher, The Arena Group, all

Charissa Thompson admits making up coaches’ quotes for Fox Sports, backtracks after social media fallout

Charissa Thompson’s statement that she had made up reports during N.F.L. games on Fox left many of her counterparts aghast.

Washington Post publishes graphic photos, videos from mass shootings to show ‘full scope’ of AR-15’s power

The Washington Post takes the “unusual step” of publishing graphic photos from mass shootings

BBC anchor incorrectly reports IDF ‘targeted’ medical staff in Gaza; news organization makes on-air apology

BBC Apologizes Over Israel-Hamas War Misreporting After Anchor Falsely Claimed IDF ‘Targeted’ Medical Staff

The BBC has apologized after a news anchor misreported a Reuters news story to suggest the Israeli army was “targeting” medical staff.

The BBC newsreader, believed to be Monica Miller, a senior broadcast journalist and BBC anchor based in Singapore, was reading from a Reuters report when she twice stated the Israeli military was “targeting people including medical teams as well as Arab speakers” in Gaza’s

Ex-Fox News producer sues, claiming network fired him for complaining about ‘false’ 2020 election coverage

Fired Fox News Producer Sues After Questioning Election Coverage

Jason Donner, a former reporter and producer for Fox News, said in a lawsuit that he was fired last year after he complained about the network’s “false reporting on the ‘stolen election.’”

Donner, who worked for the Fox Corp. channel for 12 years, sued the network for wrongful dismissal in September in District of Columbia Superior Court. On Monday, Fox asked that the case be moved to federal court. The

Protesters accuse Western media of spreading misinformation and mischaracterizing Israel-Hamas conflict

Protesters at Dallas Morning News building decry Western media coverage of Israel-Hamas conflict

Hundreds of Dallas Palestinians and supporters gathered at a park across from The Dallas Morning News offices Thursday to call for more nuanced Western media coverage of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, a militant group based in Gaza.

Palestinian advocates and supporters are accusing Western media outlets of spreading misinformation and mischaracterizing the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas militant group.

At a rally

Op-Ed: Covering Trump requires more care, preparation, diligence; ignoring him leaves him less examined

Opinion: How not to cover Donald Trump’s bizarre 2024 campaign for president

The problem with the “Don’t amplify liars” argument is twofold. First, the press is no longer a gatekeeper of what people know; it’s more often an annotator of what they’ve already heard elsewhere. So not covering Trump, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene or others in politics who say patently false things will not silence them. It will just leave them less examined.

How to cover the presidential

Editor: Colorado Newsline to end horse race election coverage, prioritize constituents’ interest over politicians’

Horse race coverage prioritizes those in power, not the people the powerful are supposed to serve. The news it delivers can be superficial, and in some cases it can amount to misinformation if its effect is to legitimize objectionable campaigns or distract from crucial facts.

That’s why in Newsline’s election coverage, we’re demoting the horse race and elevating constituent interests.

Murdoch’s departure as Fox News leader expected to have little impact on conservative media landscape

NEW YORK (AP) — The departure of Rupert Murdoch as the leader of Fox’s parent company and his News Corp. media holdings after decades at the helm is unlikely to have as much of an impact on conservative media overall as it would have a decade ago.

That’s because the landscape in general is increasingly fractured, experts said. With a growing number of digital media sources available to them, right-leaning audiences have plenty of options for getting news, opinion and

Washington Examiner op-ed: Carlson recirculates conspiracy theory about Obama ‘to draw eyeballs and clicks’

Tucker Carlson abandons journalistic ethics to push conspiracy theory about Obama

When he wants to be, Tucker Carlson can be one of the most engaging, difficult, and critical interviewers in all of news media. But since taking his show independent, Carlson has repeatedly published, to audiences of tens of millions of trusting viewers, weak interviews that uncritically parrot unlikely narratives from uncredible individuals.

The latest such interview features a man, Larry Sinclair, who says he did drugs and had sex

Newsmax runs on-air fundraising appeals for Rudy Giuliani’s legal defense, collects checks on his behalf

Newsmax recently began running on-air fundraising appeals for the legal defense of disgraced Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. But not only is the network urging viewers to help Giuliani — it appears to be also running his donation website directly and collecting the checks on his behalf.

Like former President Donald Trump and over a dozen of his alleged co-conspirators, Giuliani was arrested in Fulton County, Georgia, late last month on multiple charges related to Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020

Gannett halts AI-produced high school sports stories after publishing several with sloppy, repetitive content

Newspaper chain Gannett has paused the use of an artificial intelligence tool to write high school sports dispatches after the technology made several major flubs in articles in at least one of its papers.

Several high school sports reports written by an AI service called LedeAI and published by the Columbus Dispatch earlier this month went viral on social media this week — and not in a good way.

In one notable example, preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine

Associated Press sets standards for use of artificial intelligence; bans its use for creating publishable content

Pro-DeSantis political ad uses artificial intelligence to simulate Trump’s voice saying words he never spoke

A pro-Ron DeSantis ad used AI to recreate Donald Trump’s voice. Experts say it won’t be the last.

The Never Back Down PAC took Trump’s words and used artificial intelligence to create audio of a Trump-like voice reading them.

Extremist group Moms for Liberty focuses on becoming more media savvy, winning over GOP parents, politicians

Moms for Liberty’s media training session was a warning to the press

Northwestern University student newspaper breaks major national story on hazing in school’s football program

The Daily Northwestern — the student newspaper of Northwestern University — and reporters Nicole Markus, Alyce Brown, Cole Reynolds, and Divya Bhardwaj published a disturbing story about the university’s football program: “Former NU football player details hazing allegations after coach suspension.”

A former player told The Daily Northwestern about hazing within the program that included coerced sexual acts. They spoke to another player who confirmed the story. In addition, the player said head coach Pat Fitzgerald might have known about

Fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson promoted false, racist narratives drawn from fringe, far-right forums

Until his abrupt ouster on Monday, Tucker Carlson used his prime-time Fox News show — the most-watched hour on cable news — to inject a dark strain of conspiracy-mongering into Republican politics.

As Fox News’ “tentpole,” drawing around 3 million viewers a night, Carlson’s show “has been both a source of that kind of nationalist, populist conservatism that Donald Trump embodied, but it’s also been a clearinghouse for conspiracies,” said Nicole Hemmer, a history professor at Vanderbilt University who studies

Top-rated Fox News host Tucker Carlson pushed out a week after network settles defamation suit for $787M

Don Lemon fired from CNN 2 months after apologizing for comments widely viewed as ageist, misogynistic

Proof of deliberate lies about Dominion on Fox News key to the company overcoming tough libel law standard

How election lies, libel law were key to Fox defamation suit

In its defense, Fox relied on a doctrine of libel law that has been in place since a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The doctrine has made it difficult for some plaintiffs to prove defamation by news outlets. Public figures, and Dominion fits that standard in this case, have to prove not only that the information reported was incorrect but that the news organization acted with “reckless disregard” about

MyPillow founder Mike Lindell loses his election fraud challenge; must pay $5M to man who proved him wrong

Fox News’ decision to broadcast false information an ‘egregious’ violation of journalism ethics, experts say

‘An egregious violation of journalism ethics’: Experts slam Fox News’ conduct in Dominion case

Yahoo News spoke to professors who specialize in journalism ethics, as well as to experts in First Amendment law, who said that the case against Fox News is unusual in that it appears to show how those

DeSantis proposes making it easier to sue journalists with hopes of overturning landmark defamation ruling

DeSantis wants to roll back press freedoms — with an eye toward overturning Supreme Court ruling – POLITICO

The proposal is part DeSantis’ ongoing feud with media outlets like The New York Times, Miami Herald, CNN and The Washington Post — media companies he claims are biased against Republicans — as he prepares for a likely 2024 presidential bid.

making it easier to sue journalists, the proposal is also being positioned to spark a larger legal battle with

Ex-MSNBC host Krystal Ball says she was told to get network boss’ permission before criticizing Hillary Clinton

Former MSNBC host Krystal Ball claims she was given a slap on the wrist for criticizing Hillary Clinton leading up to the 2016 election, and was told that if she wanted to continue criticizing Clinton on air, she needed to obtain approval from the network’s president.

Ball’s comments came during an episode of Joe Rogan’s popular “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, where Ball is a regular guest.

“Shortly before I was let go, I did a monologue when Hillary Clinton

Playbill CEO pulls article detailing abuse of staffs at Broadway theaters: ‘We want people to go to the theater’

In an unprecedented move, the CEO of Playbill has pulled an article off its website that details abuse of front-of-house staff in Broadway theatres. The CEO, Philip Birsh, took things a step further by denigrating his writer and Editor-in-Chief calling the piece “salacious”, “clickbait”, and “exaggerated”.

Last Wednesday, Playbill published an exposé that detailed various accounts of abuse that front-of-house workers have had to endure in Broadway theatres. The abuse runs the gamut from verbal to physical. While the article

Jenna Bush Hager selling luxury bedding upsets some NBC staffers concerned about news division’s credibility

Help audience navigate news, listen to criticism among tips for covering police violence and protests with care

About our process: In putting together this post, we pulled from resources we’ve published, added wisdom shared by journalists and addressed frustrations we’ve seen from news consumers. We also were mindful of the lack of racial diversity on our small team and are grateful to our partners at the American Press Institute for reviewing it and contributing suggestions.

Each time we’re faced with incidents of police brutality and resulting protests,

The Wrap: Video of attack on Paul Pelosi vindicates NBC’s Miguel Almaguer, who was disciplined for his story

Body-cam footage from the late-night attack on Paul Pelosi released Friday largely corroborated the early November reporting of correspondent Miguel Almaguer, who had his story retracted and was briefly suspended. But it doesn’t appear he’ll be getting any sort of public apology from the network.

In the days after the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was attacked, with details scant, police video under seal and conspiracy theories running rampant, Almaguer reported that arriving San Francisco police were unaware they

Opinion: Should the government subsidize local media? There are some valid arguments in favor of doing so

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has a backstory journalists love; they can’t ignore their role to hold him accountable

NABJ: Report on Memphis police brutality case with ‘accuracy, responsibility, sensitivity, fairness, and support’

What will matter most during this news cycle is accuracy, responsibility, sensitivity, fairness, and support. News executives and managers must ensure that the reporting produced under their leadership follows the pillars of journalism and unapologetically tells Tyre’s story through a careful lens of the Black community. They must make it a priority to be intuitive about what is seen, heard and read by their audiences. And they must immediately activate and sustain resources to help ensure that the mental health

‘Face the Nation’ moderator Margaret Brennan cuts off congressman’s attempt to employ bothsidesism

‘I’m asking about you’: CBS host shuts down GOP lawmaker’s attempt to ‘both sides’ election denial

On Sunday morning’s edition of Face the Nation, United States Congressman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) reverted to a “both sides” response when pressed by CBS moderator Margaret Brennan on how he felt about having Republican members of Congress who aided former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election serve on powerful House committees.

Brennan:

Declining trust in news media making whistleblowers less likely to go to journalists to expose wrongdoing

She found that whistleblowers were drawn to journalists because of the overlap between their own motives and their perception of journalists’ motives — keeping the powerful in check and advocating for the public interest. Their goal was to produce social change, so the name recognition and status of the journalist they approached played an outsized role in their criteria for trust.

Two other criteria were unsurprisingly significant: a commitment to protect their identity and substantial subject matter expertise. What’s more

‘Innovative’ news startups usually aren’t. They may seem so at first but then return to status quo. Why?

We live in a golden age of national media startups. Every week another group of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed media personalities launches another cleverly branded news site to solve all of American journalism’s problems.

So why do all these sites sound the same?

Why do political news sites, begun with lots of fanfare about how different and innovative and disruptive they plan to be, end up covering the same stories covered by every other established media source?

Why are they all

Gun violence victims tell researchers news coverage of shootings dehumanizing; report recommends changes

‘Like I’m a nobody’: Breaking news coverage of shootings is dehumanizing and delays progress, per new Temple study

Episodic media coverage of gun violence can dehumanize victims and force them to relive their trauma while also undermining support for public health solutions, according to a new research study out of Temple University Hospital.

“This study is the first of its kind that

New Jersey’s new information literacy law to help students ‘weigh the flood of news opinion, and social media’

Journalism shouldn’t just expose problems, it should explore ways for residents and officials to solve them

If journalism is part of the problem, can it be part of the solution?

It is not enough for stories to expose problems to societal problems; they should explore how people tackle those problems

Enter solutions journalism. We need to be showing our audience — those who are already aware, those who maybe started off caring but have become psychically numb — that there are people, communities, tribes, organizations, etc. out there working on, experimenting with, learning from both successful

Journalists pushing back on false and misleading statements, refusing to become conduits of misinformation

Santos story highlights struggles of the journalism industry and importance of a commitment to finding truth

The Santos story shows the truth matters. And so does journalism.

A more cinematic C-SPAN covering Congress might entice politicians to constantly strive for viral moments

The Case Against a More Cinematic C-SPAN – Mother Jones

As my colleague Tim Murphy wrote for the magazine, we live in a post-Trumpian era teeming with shitposters, lawmakers clamoring for virality with a shamelessness that can only be judged as repulsive. C-SPAN was created to undo such media distortion. But, in the blog era, that’s harder to imagine: Everything is fodder for a post. Adults who run our country now obsess over ways to appear in headlines claiming

Small Long Island newspaper raised questions about Santos before election; national media failed to follow

News outlets struggle to effectively address misinformation for their most digitally savvy news consumers

Falling prey to manipulators?: Media seem to be making same mistake with Musk that they made with Trump

hey are consumed by spectacle and fail to recognize the larger issue: they are being manipulated with the goal of making them submissive.

Why should we care about chaos at Twitter? Though imperfect, the social media platform fills a local news gap

Why should we care what happens to Twitter?

Group urges Senate to prioritize passage of the PRESS Act, which protects journalists from disclosing sources

The time between an election and the inauguration of a new Congress — or the lame duck, as it is affectionately known — is ironically a time when things can happen on the Hill, in part because departing members don’t have to worry about reelection, and Congress has to agree on certain must-pass bills (the National Defense Authorization Act, for instance) before year’s end. This year, the Senate has a unique opportunity to pass a landmark federal shield bill that

Retired NBC News justice correspondent Pete Williams discusses ethics and covering the U.S. Supreme Court

Pete Williams, newly retired from NBC News, is revered by journalists, government officials and the public for his thoughtful and trusted reporting. During almost 30 years at NBC News, Williams covered the U.S. Supreme Court and the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.

Williams graduated from Stanford in 1974 and worked as a reporter and news director for KTWO television and KTWO radio stations in his hometown of Casper, Wyoming, after graduating. He later began a career on Capitol Hill

ABC News takes ‘GMA3’ anchors Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes off the air amid allegations of a romantic affair

‘GMA3’ anchors Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes taken off the air following report of romantic relationship

Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes, co-hosts of ABC News’ “GMA 3,” have been taken off the air following the public disclosure of a romantic relationship, network President Kim Godwin announced to staffers on Monday morning, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“I’m going to talk about something that has become an internal and an external distraction: The relationship between two of

New Jersey poised to require public schools to teach media literacy to K-12 students to combat misinformation

News outlets worldwide report on protests in China while state-run media there provide almost no coverage

Unprecedented protests in China are making headlines around the world, except inside China

The censors are working overtime in China.

In a rare show of anger at the Chinese Communist Party, thousands of protesters have amassed in the streets of more than a dozen Chinese cities in recent days calling for an end to strict Covid lockdown measures and political freedoms.

It is one of the top stories — if not the top story — for major news organizations around

NY Times, other media call on US to drop Assange charges, worried about criminalization of some journalism