BY EVETTE DIONNE / After reading a news report about a 60-year-old rape victim, Twitter user, Christine Fox (@steenfox), posed a simple question to her 17,000 followers: “What were you wearing when you were assaulted?” Hundreds of Twitter users shared their stories with Fox, and exposed a split in how journalists interpret the ethics of using tweets.
BY GEORGE SALAMON / Earlier this month, two heavyweights of journalism wrote about their profession. On March 14, Glenn Greenwald – who revealed much of Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency leaks in the UK’s Guardian – answered an attack on his new publication, the Intercept, which is funded by billionaire Pierre Omidyar, founder and chief executive officer of eBay. Journalism, Greenwald told us in “On the Meaning of Journalistic Independence,” does not have to reflect the views of those who fund it, even those with “bad political views.” A few days earlier, the New York Times’ public editor, Margaret Sullivan, reflected on the values of good journalism, based on her talk earlier to the Associated Collegiate Press convention.
BY WILLIAM H. FREIVOGEL / Top editors of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch have written a letter to the editor of the Gateway Journalism Review taking issue with a recent story about the paper’s “Jailed By Mistake” investigation. The GJR is publishing the entire letter to provide the newspaper a full airing of its views and because the letter is an extraordinarily detailed defense of a major newspaper project.
Dear Mr. Babcock: We had trusted that the Gateway Journalism Review’s recent article, “Social Media Campaign by former P-D writer alleges P-D mistakes in series about mistakes” (Winter 2014), by publisher Bill Freivogel would finally offer a fairer and more complete assessment of our “Jailed by Mistake” project than your previous online efforts. Instead, we unfortunately found a disappointing lack of critical thinking, balance and independent reporting. The most disturbing failures of the article were its absence of analysis, its lopsided “he said, she said,” nature of reporting and its author’s willingness to accept without question assertions and spin by the very public officials who oversee operations that mistakenly put innocent people in jail. They are not neutral observers.
I am writing to offer my thoughts in response to the letter you recently received from the [St. Louis] Post-Dispatch regarding your publication’s analysis relating to the Post-Dispatch’s “Jailed by Mistake” articles. I believe Mr. Freivogel worked diligently to capture the perspectives of this complex situation in the Gateway Journalism Review (GJR). I am troubled by the response of the Post-Dispatch editors to this piece as it seems to be based on some substantial inaccuracies. My position regarding the items included in the March 7, 2014, letter sent to the GJR by Messrs. Gilbert Bailon and Adam Goodman of the Post-Dispatch have been well documented over the past several months with both the Post-Dispatch directly and with the GJR.