Multimedia reporting ethics
Today I ran across an issue I don’t see a lot of people discussing in regard to online journalism: reporting ethics.
Jim Killam’s last post over at the Innovation in College Media blog discusses the ethical issues of reporters that would produce both written copy and potential multimedia stories via the web.
A brief summary of the events:
- A student interviewed a university president for the college-news publication
- The reporter asked if he could record the interview, permission was granted.
- After the conclusion the reporter asked if he could use some of the audio clips to produce multimedia content. The president declined saying he would’ve spoken differently.
I read through some of the comments before leaving my own where I outline my opinion — the reporter shouldn’t have to disclose how every piece of reported material will be used beforehand.
The very fact that the interviewee could dictate how the story is presented because he might “speak differently” makes me uneasy.
I think that if I needed to explain how my notes and potential recordings would be used before every interview I wouldn’t have anyone interested in being interviewed.
However at the same time I believe that most people I’d interview would be surprised to find out that journalists that write for printed publications also generate audio, video and interactive stories for web publication. The transition of the “mojo” into the public’s perception of a reporter hasn’t happened yet. I feel once it does, the problem will correct itself.
Once the public understands that a journalist might write a print piece, create a video story, publish an audio podcast or slideshow and do it all right away with whatever they get via reporting and interviewing no one will be surprised to find out that their quotes can end up online and in print.
Until then I’d make the recommendation from my comment at ICM: tell your source everything up front, something is better than nothing.
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