Ethics in the News: Recent Episodes
Ethical Journalism Network
Ethics in the News is a series of podcasts exploring conversations at the intersection of ethics and media.
As part of our Building Trust in Media in South East Europe and Turkey, supported by UNESCO and the EU, Danica Ilic talks to Lea Auffarth, Project Coordinator of the Journalism Trust Initiative about ethical media in the Balkans.
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What are the ethical challenges to independent journalists who report on authoritarian regimes which suppress a free press? How do such regimes try to portray independent journalists as enemies of the state? Four leading journalists who've worked in Myanmar, Belarus, China and Iran reveal their experiences.
This is a podcast recording of a major international event organised by the Ethical Journalism Network which was held on Wednesday 26 May at 6.30 pm (BST). The event was chaired by Ayshah Tull, award-winning reporter for Channel 4 News and EJN Trustee, and our panel included:
Hanna Liubakova is a freelance journalist and researcher from Belarus who produces in-depth multimedia and interactive reporting with Outsiders. She began her career as correspondent and presenter for Belsat, the only independent Belarusian TV Channel, and has won several major awards.
Aye Min Thant is a Burmese-American journalist who has covered business, politics, and conflict in Myanmar, Thailand, and the United States. Aye holds degrees in gender studies anthropology, and Asian studies. They won a Pulitzer Prize in 2019 as part of the Reuters team covering the Rohingya crisis and its aftermath. They have been reporting on the military coup in Myanmar from Thailand in order to avoid arrest.
Melissa Chan is a journalist who focuses on transnational issues, often involving China’s influence beyond its borders. She has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Time, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and more. As a contributor with the Vancouver-based The Global Reporting Centre, she investigates the complexities of global trade and its costs on ordinary people. As a television journalist, she has worked with the award-winning Al Jazeera Fault Lines series, VICE News Tonight out of Europe, and served as China Correspondent with Al Jazeera English before her expulsion from the country for the channel's reports. Her work there received two Human Rights Press Awards from Amnesty International, a citation from the Overseas Press Club, and she has been listed in Foreign Policy’s Pacific Power Index, a list of 25 people shaping the future of US-China relations.
Rana Rahimpour is a reporter and presenter with the BBC World Service, covering Iranian politics. She has anchored and covered many major Iranian and international stories for the network, including Iran's nuclear programme, Iran's Presidential elections 2009 and its aftermath both for BBC Persian television and BBC World Service and the Iranian Presidential election of 2013.
Support the Ethical Journalism Network
If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to see more EJN events online, please consider making a donation in support of the EJN’s work.
Subscribe to the EJN Bulletin
You can also subscribe to the EJN Bulletin for regular updates on all our activities.
Visit our website at www.ethicaljournalismnetwork.org.
UNESCO and the Ethical Journalism Network are supporting media outlets in South East Europe in performing a self-assessment exercise of their commitment to good governance and ethical and professional standards - also called ethical audits. The project coordinator Adeline Hulin from UNESCO talks about building trust in media in the region.
When we talk about misinformation, too often we talk about it like a problem restricted to social media or alternative media – but mainstream outlets play a huge role in spreading it, failing to restrict it, or even creating it themselves. Whether it’s amplifying political lies or loaded narratives, or in propelling racist narratives, misinformation is a problem in mainstream media too.
James Ball, Global Editor of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, EJN Trustee and author of Post Truth talks to Emily Bell, Professor of Professional Practice at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism & Brooke Binkowski, managing editor, truthorfiction.com
This is a recording of a major international event organised by the Ethical Journalism Network which was held on Thursday 14th April at 10 pm UK time.
Several media outlets in Serbia have conducted ethical audits, a self-assessment exercise showing their commitment to good governance and ethical and professional standards. The EJN spoke to Jovana Prešić, project coordinator at Istinomer, and Branko Čečen, director of the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia, about the process.
The Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI) is a standard for the trustworthiness of news and information. It was initiated by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), supported by partners like the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Agence France Presse (AFP) and more than 130 organisations including the Ethical Journalism Network (EJN). JTI project director Olaf Steenfadt from RSF explains the importance of JTI and its results so far.
The Ethical Journalism Network, supported by UNESCO and the EU, is implementing the 'Building Trust in Media in South East Europe and Turkey Phase 2' project dedicated to ethical audits. Ethical audits are a self-assessment exercise conducted by media outlets that want to show and improve their commitment to good governance and ethical and professional standards. In this podcast, the EJN speaks with Alice Taylor, the co-editor of the Exit News portal based in Tirana, Albania which was amongst the first media outlets in the Balkans to conduct the ethical audit.
Social media is blamed widely for spreading fake news, which contributed to the attacks on the Washington Capitol Building and is undermining the fight against Covid-19. Action is needed. But could that action undermine the principles of free expression?
Alan Rusbridger, Carole Cadwalladr and Jillian York join Meera Selva to discuss this pertinent topic.
As vaccines effective against the novel Coronavirus begin their global rollout, tackling misinformation, disinformation and earning public confidence could not be more starkly an issue of life and death. Chaired by James Ball, panellists include: David Spiegelhalter, Kate Wilkinson, Nina Jankowicz, Anjana Ahuja and Marianna Spring
With suicide rates on the rise in the UK, responsible and ethical reporting of suicide has never been more important. To help journalists get it right, Dr Ann Luce and Dr Sallyanne Duncan have developed a Responsible Suicide Reporting model and an online toolkit. They tell EJN's Hannah Storm why reporters have such an important role to play in the prevention of suicide.
Public media is more important than ever during a pandemic. Sally-Ann Wilson of the Public Media Alliance tells EJN's director Hannah Storm why.
In a special episode of Ethics in the News, domestic abuse campaigners Janey Starling and David Challen explain that the massive increase in attacks on women in their own homes since the lockdown is about control not Covid. They say journalists must change the way they report on these cases.
Local news publishers were already struggling before the Covid-19 pandemic. The executive director of the Public Interest News Foundation, Jonathan Heawood, discusses the challenges faced by small media outlets struggling with plunging revenues amid rising interest in good local journalism.
Aida Al-Kaisy, a Middle East specialist and programme consultant at the Ethical Journalism Network, explains how disinformation is impacting on the reporting of Covid-19 in Iraq.
The founder of the Ethical Journalism Network, Aidan White, explains why ethical media audits are so important for news organisations.
Journalist and writer Isabelle Roughol tells Hannah Storm that the Covid-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the crisis in the news industry, particularly for small media outlets.
From his home in Nairobi, journalist Salim Amin, the son of the legendary photographer and cameraman Mo Amin whose stories on the Ethiopian famine inspired We Are the World, tells Hannah Storm there have been big changes in how Africa is covered.
Jo Healey, a senior BBC news journalist, teaches her fellow reporters how to cover traumatic stories with sensitivity and compassion. She talks to EJN's director Hannah Storm about the training and reporting on Covid-19.
Will Vassilopoulos was one of the first journalists to travel to the Greek island of Lesbos to report on the refugee crisis. Five years later he tells Hannah Storm how covering the story changed him personally and also affected how he works today.
Professor Anthony Feinstein tells Hannah Storm how covering the Covid-19 pandemic is taking its toll on the mental health of journalists and how they can cope in uncertain times.
Dr Zahera Harb, a journalist and academic, discusses reporting in the time of Covid-19, and what reporters should be most aware of when covering the virus story.
Ethical Journalism Network director Hannah Storm speaks with Marius Dragomir, director of the Center for Media Data and Society, about how Covid-19 has impacted on press freedom in central Europe.