All the old ink-on-paper era ideas about journalism are fading, along with the newspapers where they’ve been practiced, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the ethics followed by those who report the news are shifting, too.
That was the message of a former Star Tribune restaurant critic and ethics columnist presenting a business ethics lecture at Minnesota State University Thursday. The title of Jeremy Iggers’ presentation: “The Increasing Irrelevance of Journalism Ethics.”
Citing the lack of digging done by journalists during the lead-up to the current war in Iraq and the spotty coverage of the sub-prime mortgage disaster that’s helping to cripple the economy as examples, Iggers said journalism, as whole, is becoming less relevant.
More and more people are turning away from newspapers, the long-time source for hard-hitting news, and depending more on the Internet for information about their world. They don’t need a newspaper or television news program to give them to-the-second weather and stock market information, Iggers said. And they don’t need news stories to boil down 200-page city budgets if they’re finding a link to the budget online.
That’s changing the rules for how news is gathered and reported, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, he said.
For the complete story, see the Friday, April 18, 2008, print edition of The Free Press or sign onto the e-edition at http://www.mankatofreepress.com/
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