The second Oppenheimer Ethics Symposium was designed for students, unlike the larger symposium held during fall 2011 in Boise, which addressed needs of media professionals and students.
Thursday’s symposium covered issues of ethics and legality in social media, specifically related to sports journalism.
In his introduction to the first of two events, Kenton Bird, director of the School of Journalism and Mass Media, addressed why this semester’s events revolved around sports journalism.
“As students know, Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms have become essential tools in the newsroom,” Bird said.
The panel discussion, titled “Did You Just Tweet That? The Perilous Marriage of Social Media and Sports Journalism,” addressed the importance of social media, how it has changed journalism and the possible downsides.
Tom Grant, who teaches mass media ethics at UI, opened the discussion with his concerns of mixing personal and professional aspects of media.
“What I find is this confuses personal and professional rules of the media world,” Grant said. “It also leaves no time for complex ethical thought. Social media works so fast that there is not time to think, it needs to be rule based.”
Such fast speeds of getting information into the world, reporters may not take traditional ethics into account, which could have serious legal implications.
“Breaking news can happen and everyone can hear about the story as it happens,” said Julie Scott, journalism professor and moderator. “But the negative is also the speed and communication allows for more mistakes to be made. Worrying about speed will increase mistakes and the need for accuracy will be thrown out the window.”
Lisa McGrath, an internet and social media attorney, said the solution lies in training.
“They lack social media legal provisions and training, aside from cautioning players there is no existent training as there would be in any other field,” McGrath said. “It takes less monitoring when guidelines are in place. Training can eliminate legal liability.”
Grant said it bothers him that people aren’t being trained in how to govern themselves using social media, and about what they say could affect other people.
Vince Grippi, a retired sports writer and editor, said he loves Twitter despite its downfalls.
“It makes journalists important,” Grippi said. “Twitter gives journalists a chance to build a following that believes in your accuracy. It allows you to build trust with whatever community you’re covering. It’s great because people start coming to you to find out what’s right.”
Becky Paull, sports information director at UI, disagreed with its effectiveness.
“I’m not sure how effective it is when you want to get a message out there are so many people who aren’t on their phone or on the Internet,” Paull said. “But you can reach the younger generation because they don’t read the paper or watch the news but if you tweet they see it.”
Using social media has also changed the timeline for reporting events — all of the panelists agreed it almost makes news available in real time, but this could again have ethical complications.
“If we don’t tweet, we might be a day late getting information and a lot of people feel this way, Scott said. “There’s no governing on tweeting and it can be a double-edged sword for journalists.”
Grippi said because of real-time information, reporters need to hope someone will share information with them as they receive it, or that they are following someone with the information.
“Often it builds depth to reporting and allows you to answer questions readers have,” Grippi said. “It’s going to be in some way salvation for a lot of journalists.”
The symposium closed with a keynote address from McGrath concerning more in-depth legal issues with social media.
“I’m here to discuss the importance of legal council on media strategy from journalism to sports to academia,” McGrath said. “Ninety percent of social media efforts are housed in marketing — some even have marketing writing social media policies which leave out critical legal provisions.”
McGrath discussed how increased social media use burdens media outlets with legal liability while the industry fails to use social media effectively.
“Where I come in is specific legal provisions and training,” McGrath said. “We really see a trend for companies to employ social media but they need legal counsel.”
McGrath said it comes down to implementing training and ethical guidelines to follow.
“Up until now hasn’t been legal counsel in social strategy, so it’s explaining why it’s needed.”
Katy Sword can be reached at [email protected]