Liberty Tree seminar: Media accountability in the digital age?

The School of Journalism at Southern Illinois University Carbondale hosted a seminar on April 12 to focus on journalism ethics and First Amendment issues, funded by a grant from Liberty Tree. In two panels, journalists, lawyers and professors talked to students and each other about whether the traditional tools of media accountability are up to the new challenges of the digital media age.

The first session’s panel was comprised of Alicia Shepard, NPR’s ombudsman, Jan Schaffer, executive director of J-Lab, Margaret Wolf Freivogel, editor of the St. Louis Beacon, and Gary Gilson, former head of the Minnesota News Council. Bill Babcock, SIUC ethics professor and editor of the Gateway Journalism Review, moderated. The second session’s panel, reacting to the first session, was comprised of Gene Policinski, executive director of the First Amendment Center, David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, Carolyn Kingcade, a journalism professor and former Reader’s Advocate at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aaron S. Veenstra, professor of new media, Laura Hlavach, professor of communications law, and William H. Freivogel, director of the SIUC School of Journalism.