Journalism and patriotism

Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, delivered this address at the annual meeting of the Organization of News Ombudsmen on April 30, 2002, at Salt Lake City, Utah.

A lot of very important things came into focus on Sept. 11 last year. Before 9-11 or after 9-11 has become one of those universal markers, a way to date things without explanation, without elaboration.

But for the future of journalism in the public interest, one of the things that occurred on 9-11 was that — for millions of Americans — timely, accurate and abundant information suddenly became important …

Bias on the church scandal? …

Even the reporters and editors at the epicenter of the Globe’s pedophile priest coverage are stunned at how the story has reverberated around the world.

What began in January as a Spotlight Team account of one errant Roman Catholic priest and the Boston Archdiocese’s failure to contain him has unleashed similarly embarrassing stories in dioceses across the United States and in at least three foreign countries. Every major newsweekly has put the story on the cover, and international media attention has been intense since the ripple effects reached the Vatican.

For the Globe, it’s the …

Health news stories score big with all kinds of readers…

The importance of health news, even the smallest stories, was dramatized last week by two readers.

A woman had read a brief item about an experimental vaccine being tried on patients with urinary tract infections. Her daughter has had so many infections that permanent damage is a possibility. The mother wanted more information on the experiment. Could we help? Yes, we found information on that test and e-mailed that information and Web site contacts to her. Now the reader has information to bring to her doctor and will try to get her daughter involved in …

Readers do a turnabout on picture…

Readers denounced The Times-Dispatch after this newspaper published on Page A1 a photograph of a dying American soldier being tended to by a medic and a priest.

In phone calls and letters to the editor, readers said the picture was insensitive and intrusive and the decision to publish it was wrong.

Whether to publish the picture was the basis of Case No. 2 in the annual you-be-the-editor exercise offered in this column April 14. Readers and T-D editors were invited to decide between two options in each case.

The cases were based on actual news …

Practicing restraint and good news judgment…

Funerals for victims of high-profile tragedy inevitably draw news coverage. The public expects it.

However, the public also tends to look disapprovingly at the contingent of reporters, photographers, TV news trucks and the like gathered at such a solemn occasion.

It doesn’t matter that the journalists represent hundreds of thousands of people who couldn’t attend but, almost like a vast extended family, care enough to want information about the event and to find their own sense of closure.

Still, some view the situation as exploitation of a family’s loss. They believe that a family …

Balance is often in the eye of the beholder…

There’s an old axiom among reporters and editors: If what you write makes people on both sides of a controversy mad at you, then you probably reported it fairly.

I don’t hold to it because it’s a cheap response to valid criticism much of the time. Our goal as journalists shouldn’t be to divine the middle ground between warring interests and track a straight line of facts that both sides would agree on. Some days the facts overwhelmingly weight coverage in one direction or the other.

Still, I can’t help but think about that old …

Newspapers adapt to the Internet Age…

The demise of newspapers, thanks to the Internet and other media, has been greatly exaggerated. In fact, the Internet has become an important tool in bringing readers the immediacy of breaking news and in making newspapers a part of their lives all day long.

Rather than competing with each other, newspapers and their Web sites such as The San Diego Union-Tribune’s SignOnSanDiego.com (also reachable at www.uniontrib.com) are engaging in partnerships that enhance and supplement news delivery to readers beyond the printed page.

“When the newspaper arrives, it is the most complete package of national …

Ethics policy guides staff, informs public…

Readers are invited today to visit The Virginian-Pilot’s Web site, www.pilotonline.com, where they can review our updated ethics policy.

I think you will be surprised — perhaps even impressed — at the breadth and depth of the policy, which covers, among other things, such important areas as accuracy, conflicts of interest, gifts and favors, and plagiarism.

The policy is in keeping with one of The Pilot’s core values — that we will be “honest, fair, accurate and ethical” in all our endeavors. It goes hand in glove with the paper’s stated purpose: “We will serve …

Bloody photo from Mideast sparks debate…

The proverb tells us a picture is worth more than 10,000 words. The impact of some pictures, however, should be measured not in words but in hammers — sledgehammers.

Some pictures batter us. They jar our emotions. And they often drive home a point more forcefully than any amount of text.

Pictures such as the front-page news photo that greeted readers of The Spokesman-Review a week ago Saturday.

The color photo, four columns wide by more than 7 inches deep, showed a victim being carried away from the site of a suicide bombing in Jerusalem. He …

Human trauma of Mideast blast clear in graphic photo …

The telephone calls arrived fast. Some of the callers were furious.

The reason: a Page One photo on Saturday, April 13. The Associated Press wire service photo focused on a paramedic attending to a wounded, dazed victim of a suicide bombing in a Jerusalem market. The injured person’s clothes are shredded. The victim’s hair, skin and clothing are dirtied and coated from the dust and debris.

Some blood is visible around the face and neck, but not a lot. Nevertheless, the photo is shocking. The moment it captures is one of human trauma.

About a dozen …