I attended virtually the inaugural symposium of Duquesne University’s Institute for Ethics and Integrity in Journalism, “The Importance of Local Journalism in an Age of Declining Trust in Media.” It was obvious that the keynote speaker and panel members had a wealth of experience in their field, and all shared very insightful stories about the trials and triumphs of working in local journalism.
However, I was disappointed on several fronts.
First was the panel falling into the all-too-convenient sermon about the need for more diversity in their industry. Panelist Lynne Hayes-Freeland commented that there are still a lot of white men making decisions inside the newsroom, ironically after noting that that the panel was composed entirely of “minorities” and women and also ignoring that all of the fellows of the institute are women.
Second, the topic of the discussion was about local journalism, but even the keynote speaker cited several cases of extremely false reporting at the national level, such as the propagation of the Steele dossier story. However, not one of the panelists made the correlation between how local journalism is affected by unethical national journalism. I believe that most local news journalism is fact-based and impartial, but when local newspapers run clearly biased stories from national news sources and wire services, it reflects badly on the former.
Hopefully, this newly formed institute can ask the difficult questions about unethical journalism at all levels and not fall back on political correctness and ideology.
A.J. Abate
Elizabeth