SOJC Celebrates Media Ethics

SOJC Dean Tim Gleason joins Payne Award winners and Valerie Payne after the awards ceremony. From left: Tim Gleason, Kevin Sites, Valerie Payne, Gary Clark, managing editor/news, The Denver Post and Cameron Eickmeyer, editor of The State Press, Arizona State University's independent student newspaper.

Ethics was front and center in a number of ways last week when the School of Journalism and Communication (SOJC) presented its annual Ruhl Lecture as well as the 2005 Payne Awards for Ethics in Journalism.

The school also hosted Colloquium 2005 in Applied Media Ethics, “Caring in the Media,” part of a series of 10 annual colloquia held across the nation. The event was coordinated by Tom Bivins, professor of journalism and communication, who holds the school’s John L. Hulteng Chair in Media Ethics. It was attended by six national scholars who, with the assistance of six developing scholar assistants, generated information and ideas before gathering for a week of discussion and exchange on the topic. Papers generated through the colloquium will be published in a double issue of the Journal of Mass Media Ethics in 2006.

On May 12, journalist and media scholar Jay Harris spoke to a crowd of 300 in the EMU Ballroom as the 2005 Ruhl Lecturer. In a speech that cited Aristotle and Jazzman Sonny Rollins, Harris urged the public to hold all media accountable. To do less, he said, would be “hypocritical and unpatriotic.”

Harris also encouraged journalists to not lose faith.

“…Don’t lose faith because if journalists lose faith the light journalism shines on American life just might go out. American democracy needs that light,” he said.

2005 Ruhl Lecturer Jay Harris

Harris holds the Annenberg Chair in Journalism and Communication and is director of the Center for the Study of Journalism and Democracy at the University of Southern California. He received the Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism in 2002 after resigning as publisher of the San Jose Mercury News rather than carry out a directive to cut staff in order to increase profits.

The 2005 Payne Awards for Ethics in Journalism winners were honored earlier in the day in a ceremony at Allen Hall. They included Kevin Sites, who made a series of ethical decisions after filming a U.S. Marine killing an unarmed Iraqi; The Denver Post, which reviewed and adhered to its policy of not naming Kobe Bryant’s accuser—although their competitors were doing so—and explained that policy in detail to its readers; and Arizona State University’s independent student newspaper, The State Press, which used a thoughtful process to work with the administration when a major donor protested the paper’s use of a graphic photo to illustrate a story about body piercing.

Jon Leiberman, former Washington bureau chief of Maryland-based Sinclair Broadcast Group’s news division, was not present but received a special professional citation from the Payne Awards judges. Leiberman was fired in 2004 for publicly criticizing the company’s plan to broadcast as news a program featuring a slanted view of then-presidential candidate John Kerry’s action during the Vietnam War less than two weeks before the election.

Earlier in the week, in response to a letter from David Smith, president of Sinclair Broadcast Group, that questioned SOJC's decision, the panel reaffirmed Leiberman’s award.

“Leiberman upheld the fundamental journalistic principles of fairness and balance, even at the risk of losing his job,” SOJC Dean Tim Gleason says. “It was a principled stand in the face of significant pressure.”

The Payne Awards were established at the SOJC in 1999 by the late Ancil Payne, a leader in broadcasting in the Pacific Northwest.

Read the full text of Harris' lecture

See Dean Gleason's letter to the Sinclair Broadcast Group (letters.pdf, 132kb)