|
Media Matters
May 15, 2003
Preventing Plagiarism: What Does A Newsroom Need To Do?
By Jeffrey A. Dvorkin
Ombudsman
National Public Radio
Recent revelations by The New York Times showed that a young, talented reporter named Jayson Blair plagiarized his way around the newspaper. He began as a high-flying intern. He was given plum assignments. But dozens of examples of plagiarism finally caught up with him and Blair resigned on May 1.
Jayson Blair reported for the Times for nearly four years. Time and again, there were indications that his stories weren't entirely solid. His stories were filled with interviews that had been taken verbatim from other news organizations. Quotes were fabricated. Deadlines and appointments were missed.
Yet in spite of repeated warnings from editors and newsroom managers, nothing was done.
Finally, Blair resigned when he was unable to offer acceptable explanations. Blair himself has not spoken in public and his side of the story has yet to be told.
How could this happen at The New York Times? What should a news organization need to do to make sure it doesn't happen?
Could It Happen Here?
For those who spent time in newsroom management, a shudder of "there but for the grace of God go I..." has been the response of many.
The Times, to its great credit, has engaged in a full mea culpa, and is creating a task force to look into what was needed that could have stopped Jayson Blair sooner.
Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger said there would be no newsroom search for scapegoats. "The person who did this was Jayson Blair," he said. "Let's not begin to demonize our executives -- either the desk editors or the executive editor or, dare I say, the publisher."
Taking Ethics for Granted
But in my experience, news organizations tend to take ethics for granted. There seems to be -- in some newsrooms -- an assumption that standards and practices are somehow intuitively known by everyone as soon as they are hired.
It is also assumed that teaching ethics is someone else's responsibility, usually at some earlier stage in one's career. Or more likely, if one's career is unblemished, a journalist is rewarded with a mid-career scholarship at one of the prestigious journalism schools. Usually the people who attend these mid-career sabbaticals are the ones least in need of ethics training.
In my opinion, this is buck-passing at its finest.
News organizations should be learning organizations. Too often they are not.
Part of this is a definitional confusion over what is journalism.
Journalism as Profession?
For many in the business, what we do appears to be a profession, like law, medicine or veterinary surgery. As a profession, people are hired with a set of credentials, usually from a journalism school or from another reputable organization -- either inside journalism or not.
Journalism as Craft
But in my opinion, this is not a profession. It is a craft.
A craft is where skills are taught -- usually on the job by a more experienced practitioner.
As good a job as journalism schools can do, there is no substitute for the experience of reporting, producing and editing.
While many journalism schools provide some "hands-on" experience in writing, editing and reporting, the reality of a newsroom, its tensions and its deadlines provide a qualitative experience that cannot be replicated in the classroom.
Learning Ethics on the Job
Most journalism schools provide courses in ethical decision-making, solving ethical dilemmas and lots of discussions about what constitutes fairness and balance.
Those discussions often end as soon as the young journalist walks into the newsroom.
In a newsroom, the pressures are constant, and the delightful discussions over coffee or beer at college soon become a pleasant memory. Newsrooms just cannot stop to discuss the finer points of whether an interview was fair or unfair. The assumption is that it is fair. Otherwise, how did that person ever get hired?
This is the flaw in Arthur Sulzberger's logic: no one person or group of employees is held responsible for what happened. So if individuals aren't to blame, it must be the system.
Is an Ethics Guide Enough?
The New York Times has a system. It's an ethics guide and it is considered one of the most rigorous ethics guides in American journalism. NPR is in the process of developing a similar set of values and standards and it looks to the Times as a standard bearer.
But having a code may not be enough if it never gets read and discussed.
A news organization has to continue to impress upon its employees what its standards must be at all times. Many other news organizations have also developed written standards against which it can and should be judged. In the case of the Times, having an ethics guide is still no guarantee of immunity from ethical wrongdoing.
Journalism, like every other human endeavor, will never be free of the human lapses of which we are abundantly capable. But talking about ethics -- over coffee, at the water cooler and especially in a regular systematic way -- will go a long way to keeping our ethical booster shots up to date.
Training -- the Best Defense
In my opinion, training -- regular, systematic and mandatory training -- is what is required.
Other news organizations insist that every employee must take time out from their regular assignments to talk about the ethical quandaries we all confront. It may be a few days or a week. But it happens on a yearly basis.
Creating a learning environment where ethical decision-making is a constant aspect of the news culture is a better way of making sure that ethical lapses are minimized. Once The New York Times internal study is completed, it would be useful to other news organizations -- including NPR -- to see what happened and what steps the Times will take to insure a similar incident doesn't happen again. The Times has been wonderfully accountable and transparent so far. One hopes it continues.
When news organizations start to feel the economic pinch, they tend to discard those aspects of their business that aren't considered part of the "core mission," to use the contemporary phrase. Too often training, and ethics training in particular, are not considered "core."
But what could be more in keeping with that mission than to impress upon NPR journalists that there are many ethical ambiguities out there. Only by talking about them and having a shared understanding about what can go wrong and how do we live as ethical practitioners of journalism, do we assure ourselves and our listeners that our reputation and our ethical standards are the most important values we have.
Correction
A correction from last week's column (Crediting the Source: Where Do NPR Ideas Come From?): NPR interviewed two, not three of the same people interviewed by The Los Angeles Times.
Listeners may contact me at 202-513-3246 or at ombudsman@npr.org.
Jeffrey Dvorkin
NPR Ombudsman
|
