Saturday, April 11, 2015

ETHICS: The "Rolling Stone" story is a black eye for journalism

This isn't Unionville-related, but would you indulge me and let me express my disgust, as a reporter, with the whole disgraceful "Rolling Stone" magazine debacle?
My question is this: Why has no one has been fired?
I started my career at a 16,000-circulation small-town daily. It had its faults, sure: when the editor's service club put on a play, we reporters (most unwillingly) were assigned to write stories about the auditions, the rehearsals, the opening night and then a follow-up about how much money was raised.
But you know what? For all its goofy stories and corny mascot (a newspaper with a tricorn hat and a bell), the paper had ethics. One reporter, trying to be funny, inserted into the Births column of the Saturday paper that the sports editor had had octuplets. On Monday morning we started getting phone calls; I remember taking one from an excited elderly lady who felt the story deserved to be on page 1. The reporter was fired immediately for risking the paper's credibility. He was out of the newsroom by noon.
"Rolling Stone" did far worse damage to people's reputations, to UVA, to journalism, to the credibility of sexual assault victims. Where are the consequences?

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