API receives grant for newsroom ethics seminars

The American Press Institute wants to help your newsroom examine some of the important ethical issues facing journalism. A grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation will let us bring a two-day seminar, Our Readers Are Watching, to your newsroom at a reduced cost.

In the seminar, we will discuss whether, when and how your staff should use confidential sources. We will discuss what editors can do to protect your newspaper's integrity from dishonest sources and dishonest or careless reporters. We will discuss the ethical issues that most concern you. We will hear how your readers view some of these issues.

This will be an API Tailored Program, customized to reflect the values and concerns of your newsroom. At the first Our Readers Are Watching seminar at The Oregonian last year, some issues the editors in Portland wanted to discuss were decisions about publishing photographs with disturbing images, coverage of private lives of public officials and coverage of private issues such as suicide. Michael Arrieta-Walden, The Oregonian's public editor, wrote a column about the newspaper's re-examination of its coverage of suicide following the API seminar.

We can examine those issues with your staff or we can consider other issues, such as accuracy, attribution, cheating, datelines, diversity, fabrication, ideology, online edition standards, plagiarism, tape recording, undercover reporting, verification and victims.

The grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation pays most of the cost of the seminar for U.S. newsrooms. Host newspapers will pay a sliding fee based on circulation: $1,000 for newspapers smaller than 50,000 daily circulation, $1,500 for newspapers from 50,001 to 100,000 and $2,000 for newspapers over 100,000 circulation. Host newspapers also pay for the lodging and meals of discussion leaders and for photocopies of handouts for the seminars. The grant will cover air fare and ground transportation.

To schedule Our Readers Are Watching for your newsroom, e-mail or call (703-715-3300) me.