Misinformation, disinformation, and extremism online have intensified, and the public, news industry, and technology sector continue to grapple with how to resolve these problems. The Journalism and Media Ethics program is developing a range of initiatives that advance the following three aims:
- Giving journalists the crucial background and framework needed for ethical journalism.
- Giving the public a voice in shaping and understanding journalism.
- Using ethical principles to frame the design and delivery of news, social media, and search products.
Commentary on Journalism and Media Ethics
Why Facebook Left up the “Drunk Pelosi” Video but YouTube Took It Down
A short guide to where Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube disagree on content moderation.
Facebook’s Ethically Incoherent Response to Manipulated Content
Abdicating private responsibility is a strategic maneuver to avoid public accountability.
Julian Assange and the Freedom of the Press
How do the U.S. DOJ’s espionage-linked charges against Julian Assange bear press freedom?
The Dilemma of Empathy and the News
Anita Varma quoted in Psychology Today.
Regulating Disinformation? We’ve Been Debating the Wrong Question
Sanitizing digital content by fetishizing information will not remedy the root issue.
About the Journalism and Media Ethics program
The end of traditional "gatekeeping" has signaled a seismic shift in how narratives are framed, developed, distributed, socialized, and discussed. For some communities, this is troubling because it threatens a longstanding social order. For others, particularly those who have been ignored or sidelined by traditional gatekeepers, this is a tremendous moment of opportunity for greater inclusion. At the same time, journalism's financial sustainability continues to be in doubt.
Too often, the hardest and interdisciplinary problems with ethical implications are being identified only after editorial, business, and technology decisions have been incorporated into products and narratives. The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics is uniquely well-positioned to provide ethical frameworks to help stakeholders proactively identify and analyze normative questions from the early stages to later in delivery cycles, while at the same time enriching the ongoing debates in these spheres.
We are excited to supply a more comprehensive approach to applied journalism and media ethics. We are dedicated to helping media producers, journalists, product designers, members of the public, and critics develop ways to address pressing -- and persistent -- ethical dilemmas that continue to have wide-reaching consequences for us all.
