Discussion Starter

The Accidentally Awesome Ethics Assignment

Trying to make ethics real to students isn’t always easy. Fictional scenarios only go so far, as students can be unrealistically brave (“I’d tell my editor to kiss my grits and I’d quit!”) or fall into “Lebowski mode.”

In my freelance class, we talked about the various elements of ethics (honesty, integrity etc.) as well as some of the crucial aspects of what makes life a little different for freelancers (You only eat what you kill. You might have differing standards for different editors. etc.)

That said, I think I accidentally bumped into one of the more engaging assignments of the entire class. Here’s the story:

I have no attendance policy for the freelancing class, other than to say, “If you skip class, you’re losing out on whatever important thing we’re doing that day.” I figure, hell, they’re paying for the class through their tuition. If they want to treat my class like that Planet Fitness membership they haven’t cancelled over the past six years, despite never actually going to Planet Fitness, well, fine by me.

Only half of the students dragged themselves to the 8 a.m. class in the bitter cold on the day we had the ethics lecture. After we mulled the ethics of ethics and so forth, I asked them to consider the following:

“How would you feel ethically if I decided to just give you 100 percent on the third (final) story you have for this class because you showed up today?” In other words, I waive the assignment, you get the points. It’s like you showed up and you got a free cookie for doing so.

It was like pulling teeth to get them to discuss it at first. Some were happy to take it, others said, “Well, I’d feel a little guilty, but…” Eventually, they kind of settled in with the, “Gee, I don’t know but it sounds nice in theory” outcome.

So, I told them, “I’m going to leave the room. You have 15 minutes to come to a conclusion on if this should happen or not for real. If you don’t all agree, nothing happens. If you all agree on getting the freebie, it will happen. Go for it.”

As I sat in my office, I could hear the arguing, the overlapping voices and the frequent of yelling of “YEAH, BUT, WAIT…” After the 15 minutes, the appointed spokesperson of the group tossed open the door and yelled, “UNNNNGGHHH! FILAK! WE’RE READY!”

They explained that they were going to take the freebie and why they thought it was OK. Some justified it as they were always there and other people tended to skip a lot. (“One of the people not here just Snapchatted me a picture of themself in bed, so I don’t feel bad at all about this…” one student noted.)

Some said they figure life is a lot of luck of the draw, so they just got the lucky draw. Others said the benefit didn’t technically hurt anyone, as it wasn’t like the people who DIDN’T get the free pass had to do MORE than they would have otherwise.

I then said that they had really touched on all the areas except for one that seemed a little obvious. I asked a student if she had covered a vintage clothing event she was paid to do as a freelancer. When she said she did, I asked, “So, what if, after you published this piece, the person who organized the event came up to you and thanked you for such a nice story and gave you a $100 gift certificate to her vintage clothing store? Is that OK? I mean, you’re getting a benefit for something you would have done anyway, right?”

The student just stared at me. The young lady next to her said, “I think I want to change my vote.”

Then one kid asked me, “Is this real? I mean… some of us weren’t really sure that you meant it.”

“No,” I said. “This is real. You get the freebie.”

“My stomach kind of hurts,” another kid said. “This just feels weird now.”

I dismissed the class and they kept talking about it as they walked down the hall, some arguing while others trying to reassure themselves this was fine.

I hadn’t planned this at all, nor did I really think of how it would pan out, but here are a couple things this exercise ended up emphasizing:

REAL LIFE ETHICS ARE HARD: In life, there are a number of decisions I’ve made that I look back on and think, “What if I’d gone the other way?” Almost all of them are ones in which ethics are deeply ingrained.

I’ve never been a fan of debating ethics in a classroom setting because it feels like a false front to me. It’s the same reason I have trouble teaching crime reporting in a classroom: I could do a fake press conference about a fatal accident or have kids “role play” a terrible scenario, but in the end, it’s not real. While ethical debates give the students some things to consider, the impact isn’t there.

The thing that made this situation hard for them was that there were real consequences. They got something for free, which they likely felt they didn’t earn. It was an all-or-nothing situation, which I have found many students don’t like, as they prefer to hedge their bets as opposed to putting it all on 23 Red and spinning the wheel. It was something they really wanted, but they also felt guilty about their good fortune when compared to that of their missing colleagues. Which leads to point two…

GUILT IS A BITCH: One of my favorite discussions ever happened during the weekend I got married. My best man, Adam, came from a traditional Jewish family, while I and the rest of my kin were mostly in the Catholic realm. During the downtime before the wedding, Adam sidled up to me and said, “You’re on to something about Catholic guilt.”

Over the years, we’d had these great debates over whose faith had the bigger slice of the guilt pie. He argued that the stereotypical “Jewish mother” guilt was both real and unrelenting when it came from people within one’s family, while I argued that the less-direct Catholic guilt was like the smell generated from one of those plug-in oil things: It is everywhere and it just hangs there all around you.

In the end, we kind of came to the agreement that this was like arguing Hank Aaron vs. Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle vs. Joe DiMaggio: It all depends on how you slice the argument, but both are more than worthy of greatness.  Guilt, be it Catholic guilt, Jewish guilt or other similar guilt is really a pain.

The situation in class drove that home for me. These kids were literally getting stomach aches and headaches as they tried to wrap their brains around the idea of what was being offered and if they should take it. The emotion most of them came back to was one of guilt.

I’m not saying that’s good or bad, although guilt has led me to both good and mediocre decisions in life, but to have so many people from so many different backgrounds have their mental state coalesce around one emotion really says something.

THERE IS NO GOOD DECISION: One of the things I tell students a lot is that if you end up dealing with an ethical dilemma and you feel perfect at the end of your decision-making process, you really didn’t have an ethical dilemma. Dealing with these kinds of things in journalism is a lot like this scene from “Argo:”

There can be situations where you feel better or worse about the choices and the outcomes, but at the end of the day, you really don’t get to feel like everything is perfect. The key is to learn from each situation and make better bad decisions as you move forward.

 

When Charissa Thompson fakes NFL reports, all sideline reporters take a whack to their credibility

This photo says so much and not nearly enough about what is going on in her mind in regard to being a serious sports journalist.

THE LEAD: Charissa Thompson, a sports journalist (remember that word), caught hell this week after she stated on a podcast that while she worked NFL games, she would make up her sideline reports on occasion.

“I’ve said this before, so I haven’t been fired for saying it, but I’ll say it again,” Thompson said. “I would make up the report sometimes because, A, the coach wouldn’t come out at halftime or it was too late and I was like, I didn’t want to screw up the report, so I was like, ‘I’m just gonna make this up.'”

She then explained there was no harm in anything she would say to audiences.

“No coach is gonna get mad if I say, ‘Hey, we need to stop hurting ourselves, we need to be better on third down, we need to stop turning the ball over and do a better job of getting off the field,'” she continued. “Like, they’re not gonna correct me on that. I’m like it’s fine, I’ll just make up the report.”

After every single journalist on earth seemingly did the obligatory “WTF?!?!” social media post, Thompson tried to walk this back with a more measured statement:

“When on a podcast this week, I said I would make up reports early in my career when I worked as a sideline reporter before I transitioned to my current host role,” she said.

“Working in the media I understand how important words are and I chose wrong words to describe the situation. I’m sorry. I have never lied about anything or been unethical during my time as a sports broadcaster.

“In the absence of a coach providing any information that could further my report I would use information that I learned and saw during the first half to create my report. For example if a team was 0 for 7 on 3rd down, that would clearly be an area they need to improve on in the second half. In these instances I never attributed anything said to a player or coach.

So, if you’re following along at home, Thompson glibly did the “I’m so cool I can make stuff up and nobody cares” thing until she realized that EVERYBODY cares about the accuracy of sports journalism. Then, she did the “I chose my words poorly” thing, which is usually saved for when people make a career-ending comment and are desperately trying to save their careers.

DYNAMICS OF WRITING FLASHBACK: We’ve poked at sports journalism before about ethical breaches, blurring the line between reporting/fanboying and other similar things. We’ve also covered the issue of people in journalism making up quotes or sources when they didn’t really have the goods they needed to have in order to get stories they otherwise wouldn’t have.

It’s not a rare thing, unfortunately, to talk about people in journalism breaking the basic ethical codes of the field. It also seems to be in some of the dumbest possible circumstances, in that you rarely see a story like the one Jayson Blair made up about the D.C. Sniper and more so in situation where a reporter didn’t feel like asking a salt-of-the-earth pancake-eating source what they thought of inflation.

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: The first and most obvious thing is that, as a journalist, you don’t make stuff up. You can’t include the word “reporter” in your title and then pretend that the tenets of accuracy and honesty don’t apply to you.

When I look at the career of a sideline reporter, I can’t imagine a more difficult job because of who tends to fill it, how the world tends to perceive them and how hard they have to hustle. The majority of these reporters are women, and sports have never been too kindly to female journalists. The book, “Who Let Them In?,” does an amazingly and painfully detailed job of explaining what path-breaking women in sports journalism went through and what women in sports journalism still go through.

The television element adds the issue of physical attractiveness to the topic at hand. You might get a heavy-set guy with the remnants of a bad teenage bout with acne on the screen, but you’re almost assuredly not going to see a woman of a similar description.

One of the first women to have a nationally prominent role on an NFL television program was Phyllis George, a former Miss America. Critics pointed out that George had limited television and sports experience, and was intended merely as eye candy for men. Unfortunately, as viewers got a heavy dose of female reporters on the sideline over the years, each of whom was “visually appealing,” the rap on these journalists became that anyone who could successfully rock a “Hooters” uniform could probably do the job.

The fact of the matter is that these journalists have to hustle harder than their counterparts in so many ways and be ready for almost anything. As some reports on this topic mentioned, when Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest on the field, the sideline reporters were the first and most direct line of communication to the public about his situation. When players are injured, when fights break out in the stands or when any other kind of bedlam takes place, these journalists are pushing for information and trying to keep the audiences informed.

When one person of a particular group (sideline reporters) breaks the code and kind of does it in a “oh, well, I’m not really a journalist anyway” kind of fashion, it hurts the remainder of the people in that group. That’s why you saw Laura Okmin, Andrea Kremer, Tracy Wolfson and dozens of other sideline reporters and female sports journalists coming out on social media to say, “We don’t make stuff up. Never. Don’t even think about it.”

Thompson’s actions and her disclosure in this fashion caused a great deal of harm to journalists who already have to work way too hard to be considered journalists at all, let alone equals of people who often have less journalism-based education and media training than they do. As we have seen in some of the other cases noted earlier, this is a firing offense and it should be.

ESPN does a DeepFake video of Damian Lillard and then tries to BS its way out of the outrage over ethics

A screenshot of the video ESPN posted that was digitally altered to put him in a Bucks uniform on the Bucks’ court after his Bucks debut.

 

THE LEAD: ESPN is backpedaling faster than the defense trying to stop Dame on a fast break after people figured out it created a “deepfake” video of Lillard using altered video footage from 2020 on its social media feed.

BACKGROUND: Lillard joined the Bucks in the off-season from Portland in a blockbuster trade. His debut against the 76ers lived up to the hype, as he scored 39 points, grabbed eight rebounds and handed out four assists.

After that, ESPN tweeted out a six-second video that featured Lillard in his Bucks jersey, with an ESPN microphone held at length, in which he lets people know this is basically going to be his resting pulse for the whole year as he’s making a run at a championship.

The problem is that people started figuring out this wasn’t legitimate, as the game was on TNT, so why was ESPN alone on this interview? Also, what was up with the weird pole thing? More detailed sleuths took issue with the fact the Bucks arena floor and Lillard’s jersey didn’t look right compared to the game footage they’d seen.

ESPN then issued a statement trying to explain away the fact they’d taken a video from the 2020 “Bubble Era,” removed TNT’s logo, PhotoShopped a Bucks jersey over Dame’s old Portland jersey and basically made stuff up:

“We occasionally look to connect sports moments of the past with contemporary imagery and storylines as part of our social content. While it was never our intention to misrepresent anything for fans, we completely recognize how this instance caused confusion.”

 

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE:

Shenanigans – REGION ONE REPORT

Uh-huh. SURE you didn’t mean to mislead people.

It’s hard to know the motivation of any one person and any one post, but this self-serving statement is total crap. That said, here’s the bigger problem: When you are the purveyor of actual content (games, SportsCenter, breaking news on athletes’ lives etc.), you are held to an actual ethical standard higher than that of a dipshit teen playing with an Instagram filter.

The spin that ESPN put on this thing about trying to “connect sports moments of the past with contemporary imagery” is laughable at best. If they had done something like a series of clips of Lillard over his career, with that audio over the top, fine. That’s at least “past meets present” (sort of).

But what they did was fabricate reality in a way that they KNEW would lead people to believe this was a contemporary moment, captured in its entirety by ESPN. (Also, what, exactly, was the need to PhotoShop out a competitor’s logo and PhotoShop in yours, if this was only an issue of trying to “connect sports moments?” Seems more like a cheater’s attempt at self-promotion to me.)

Deadspin does a good deep dive into this, where the ethical issue is front and center in chunks like this:

The ethical problems revealed by ESPN’s inexplicable lack of judgment are complex but illustrative of the battle currently being waged in sports media, and in news media overall.

First, there’s the problem of much of society seeing sports as entertainment, rather than news. If you justify sports as a space where people come to have fun — especially NBA Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram, which is undefeated in terms of passionate fans who continually make hilarious memes and videos — then pretty much anything is ethical, right? After all, we’re all just having fun; no one thinks any of this is real.

And that’s very much the attitude had been many in the sports media space including, apparently, whoever green-lighted the Dame video at ESPN. And with the loss of shows that featured actual investigative reporting in sports, like ESPN’s Outside the Lines and HBO’s Real Sports, the space for real journalism in sports media continues to shrink.

In short, if you want people to take you seriously, you can’t do stupid crap that says, “Hey, we’re just screwing around with stuff for fun!”

 

 

DISCUSSION STARTER: What, if anything, should ESPN be doing in this arena?

  • Should it be making stuff up, but telling people enough to let them know it’s made up? Or will that just perpetuate a problem and keep sliding toward the line between journalism and fiction?
  • Should it get the heck out of this kind of “construction of reality,” in that it’s not ESPN’s gig, even if everyone else is doing it?
  • Should it find ways to use the digital technology that helped them do this in specific ways but not other ones?
  • Is there a different angle we’re missing?

What’s the male equivalent of “mistress” (or how does the media frame people who aren’t straight, white men)?

Today’s “Mass Com Monday” post takes a look at the idea of how the choices journalists make in their work can shape the way we see a person, an event or a concept. Broadly speaking, the idea of inclusion or exclusion of content to paint a specific picture is known as framing, a theory most journalism students learn about.

For example, let’s look at like Sunday’s Broncos/Commanders game: The Broncos led 21-3 early in the game. The Commanders scored enough points to take a 35-24 lead. The Broncos then scored twice to make the final score 35-33, after they failed in an attempt at a two-point conversion with no time left on the clock.

This could be framed as an epic comeback if you want to look at it from the point of view of the Commanders. It could be framed as an epic collapse if you looked at it from the Broncos side of the deal. You could also frame it based on the final play (Commanders held on to win/Broncos failed to complete the job and lost).

Framing isn’t always about picking a side, but in most cases, it’s about how the media can shape our view of thing, including bigger topics like race, gender and other social issues. Let’s look at one example of that:

In a long social media thread a friend had running about the trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a commenter noted how the Washington Post chose to lead a story on the prosecution’s most important witness:

Two women WaPo reporters crafted this lede:

AUSTIN — The star witness swept into the Texas Capitol on Wednesday, red coat and flashy Balenciaga-emblazoned handbag tucked under her arms, her white sheath, red lipstick and signature platinum pixie all a dramatic contrast from the somber-suited individuals who have testified for the past week in the historic impeachment trial of state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The star witness was Laura Olson, person who prosecutors said had an extended affair with Paxton. What she would bring to the table in terms of supporting the case against Paxton was unclear and eventually she was cut loose from having to testify.

What is clear, based on the thread and a general reading of how Olson has been portrayed, is that there is a heavy emphasis on her appearance. Her fashion and her physical being (sweeping in, being flashy etc.) are front and center.

It’s fair to say that this kind of framing wouldn’t be something you’d see in a description of a man in a situation like this.

Or as I put it, I’d hate to see how these esteemed journalists would have described me in that situation:

“The star witness awkwardly shuffled into court with the confidence of a drunk doing a field sobriety test, clad in a wardrobe likely abandoned outside a Goodwill by a homeless elf, his head shaped like a decaying russet potato with a horse shoe of graying mane around a shiny bald top that gave him the look of a cue ball wearing a hula skirt, a dramatic contrast to the other witnesses who clearly own mirrors and possess a sense of dignity…”

The authors also make some interesting choices on what to include, such as this tidbit about her shoes:

Olson arrived with her attorney in the morning, entering the Capitol rotunda and ducking into a restroom where she traded red, kitten-heel mules for tan pumps.

Wait! WAIT! Who is the fashion designer associated with these amazing pieces of footware? Were they Manolos? Louboutins? And did she go into a stall or was this done near the sink? Come ON, Washington Post! Are you committed to serious journalistic digging or not here?

And let’s look  at  how the authors framed her compare to how they framed Paxton in the realm of non-essential clauses: (I bolded certain spots for emphasis and clarity.)

 Paxton, a three-term incumbent reelected last year, has been among the state’s most prominent allies of former president Donald Trump. 

<SNIP>

According to her LinkedIn profile, which she took down earlier this year, the four-times-divorced mother of two previously worked as district director for Sen. Donna Campbell (R) in San Antonio.

(Question: How many kids does Ken Paxton have? You wouldn’t know from this  story. Or this one. Or this one. Or a dozen others. That said, he has four kids and two grandkids, in case you think that matters.)

And then toss this in:

Paxton has not been seen in the Senate chamber since he entered a not guilty plea on day one, though his wife of more than 35 years, Sen. Angela Paxton, has been ever-present.

The picture being painted here is this: Married, thrice-elected civil servant is accused of philandering with a mother of two who apparently can’t keep a man.

This is not the only article that focuses more on what Olson looks like than what she might have to say in Paxton’s impeachment trial. Here’s one where they really dig into the clothing choice, as well as the way her high heels click-clack around the Capitol. Maybe that’s why she made the strategic move to the tan pumps…

One other thing that came up in this discussion of the Olson/Paxton situation was how Olson was described as a “mistress.” The question came up: “Is there even a male equivalent for this term, which seems to admonish her as a man-stealing home-wrecker?” As much as we had trying to make a term (“man-stress” and “side-weiner” were two I particularly enjoyed contributing), we couldn’t find one. That says something about the framing and the English language…

The point is, when we see content like this, we have our views on people like Olson shaped in one way while we have our views of people like Paxton shaped another. That’s not to say a story should never describe someone’s appearance or clothing or that all people should be treated exactly the same. What this is saying is to examine how we treat people in the media and if there is inequitable treatment based that unfairly shifts the frame.

In writing, we talked about this before on the blog, and these lessons merit a second look. As consumers, however, it really pays to pay attention to these issues as well and how they frame our views.

EXERCISE TIME: Read some stories on topics that interest you and look for specific frames that you think shape how a reader would perceive a person, event or outcome. Also keep an eye out for stories that frame individuals based on issues of race, gender, social status, sexual orientation or other similar elements. What do these frames present and do you feel they are fair?

Also, can you imagine framing people of a different group in a similar way? For example, would a man’s clothing be described in as intricate detail as a woman’s was in an article? Or would a story on a rich person focus as much on their single-parent household as a story on a poorer person does? Are there words that apply only to one group and not another, like the term “mistress?”

A look at the impact of Artificial Intelligence on journalism and education now, and where it might lead in the future

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Today we’ll kick off the start of the academic year schedule with our “Mass Com Monday” post, geared toward a broader discussion for those folks doing intro classes or those looking for bigger topics to examine. I am apparently at the last university that still has yet to start classes, but since you all are going to work, we go to work on the blog.

If you like this content, style or approach, let me know. If not, let me know that, too, as this is a transition in progress for the blog.– VFF.)

A BRIEF RECAP: Artificial intelligence is nothing new, but its more recent applications in education and journalism have brought the topic to the forefront over the past year or so, when OpenAI released its ChatGPT. The chat bot could craft reasonably decent written copy that could lay waste to the ways in which we once thought of writing as a humans-only skill.

An Atlantic article in December that the ChatGPT and its successors would eliminate one tried-and-true way in which professors tested knowledge and skills, noting succinctly, “The College Essay is Dead.” Others took the new program for a spin in various educational environments, where it did quite well. One writer had it test Harvard’s freshman curriculum, where ChatGPT received a 3.34 GPA. It also passed the bar exam, did well in business school, and even rattled the cages of med schools with its work.

Journalism has some concerns with the AI issue, in that the ability to abuse the English language has long been the sole territory of ink-stained wretches. The Associated Press established some relatively clear guidelines about what it will or won’t allow when it comes to AI, so that should be one more thing students dread popping up on an AP Style test in the future.

In addition, at least a few publications along the Gannett chain have been keeping up with their work with the help of AI:

These briefs have repetition problems, structural issues and generally speaking no real source material to speak of to support any statements of opinion. In other words, we’re looking at about a “B/B-” effort in most intro to sports writing classes. (An Axios report early today noted Gannett’s Columbus Dispatch would be “pausing” this sports program, given reader backlash. No word on if their statement about pausing the program was written by an AI program.)

Given the general freakout about all this, it looks like we’re about six months from this happening…

Or maybe not…

THREE KEY THINGS PEOPLE FORGET ABOUT AI:

  • IT OPERATES OFF OF WHATEVER IS AVAILABLE: The concept of “garbage in, garbage out” is usually credited to IBM programmer George Fuechsel, who coined the term in the 1960s. Simply put, the computer (or any logic-based system) will do what it’s trained to do with whatever input it receives. If the input is good, the output will be good. If the input is crap, the output will be crap. To this point, ChatGPT and other similar programs have been the beneficiaries of a wide array of high-quality content from a vast group of sources. That might not always be the case and even if it is, ChatGPT might not know the difference.
    One major concern raised here is that ChatGPT doesn’t really distinguish between the work of high-quality sources that have created tomes of knowledge and chuckleheads who run blogs. Another is that, as ChatGPT continues to generate more and more content, it becomes a self-feeding loop, like a snake eating its own tail.
    At the point of its launch, any and all material online was the company’s oyster, because nobody really realized what these folks were doing at the time or how they were doing it. Now that folks are digging in a bit deeper, those open lanes on the information superhighway are likely to become restricted, thanks to copyright issues and the folks who own those copyrights. This leads us to…

 

  • COPYRIGHT OWNERS TEND TO GET TESTY WHEN PEOPLE STEAL THEIR STUFF: The folks running ChatGPT are already getting their first taste of what the legal battle could look like regarding copyright infringement issues regarding the training and output associated with this program.
    In the simplest of terms, copyright basically says the person who created a work owns the ability to do with that work whatever they see fit. If someone else takes that work and does something with it that you don’t want them to, you can seek some sort of restitution. (Yes, I’m oversimplifying this, but it’s the first week of classes or so and law won’t hit you until mid-semester at the earliest…)
    Several authors have already sued the tech company over the use of their work to help build this thing, as has comedy pro/author Sarah Silverman. The bigger concerns are coming down the road, as a class-action suit in California states that the OpenAI’s data scrapers violated  “terms of service agreements and state and federal privacy and property laws.”  In addition, the New York Times has put a blocker on the ChatGPT webscraper and is “mulling” a lawsuit against the company. (As a good friend used to say, “It ain’t a lawsuit until it’s filed,” but when an organization as big and powerful as the Times publicly ponders something like this, it’s at least a shot across the bow for OpenAI.)
    If this kind of thing continues, it could substantially limit the effectiveness of AI programs like ChatGPT and potentially force OpenAI to start the process over from scratch.

 

  • CHATGPT IS ONLY AS GOOD AS OUR FAITH IN IT: If you want to see an amazing look at how simply “believing” in something can both rocket something to stardom and crash the hell out of it in a few short months, watch John Oliver’s look at cryptocurrency and then come back here.
    As much as the people building and playing with ChatGPT might not want to believe it, this system fits that same mold: We use it because it does something for us that we think is good, but the minute we figure out that it might not be all that and a bag of chips, our faith in this thing can crater rapidly.
    According to the Washington Post, the “neat new toy” vibe of this thing is already starting to wane. Additionally, the earlier look at what the Columbus Dispatch has done in pulling out of the AI writing gig demonstrates that we’re not on the road to SkyNet quite yet.

DISCUSS AWAY: Consider a few angles for potential discussion about discussion in class from these angles:

  • BASICS:
    • To what degree have you played around with GPT? What’s your early sense of what it can do and what it can’t?
    • How and why would you or wouldn’t you use ChatGPT?
  • HISTORY:
    • Look back at some of the other “early innovator” elements associated with our media (Napster, Friendster, AskJeeves etc.) and see how each of them either started a revolution or fizzled out. What kind of pattern do you see for ChatGPT based on these previous efforts?
  • LAW:
    • Do copyright issues concern you generally speaking and do you have concerns about them as they relate to the ChatGPT situation?
    • Is there a way to balance the rights of copyright owners with the interests related to developing software like ChatGPT?
    • If these suits eliminate significant sources of quality material from which ChatGPT can draw, how confident would you be in using this kind of program?
  • ETHICS:
    • Given what you’ve seen about how ChatGPT can write essays and even get you through a freshman year at Harvard, how do you feel this could impact your education or the education of others in your peer group?
    • Is it fair to use a program like ChatGPT to do some of your work? If so, what kind and how much?

A police raid on the Marion County Record’s newspaper office is both a violation of the First Amendment and a case study in astounding stupidity

ABC’s story on the raid, along with actual footage of the raid. 

THE LEAD: The entire force of the Marion, Kansas, police department, along with backup from county sheriff’s deputies raided the newsroom of the Marion County Record on Friday, turning this town of 2,000 people into a battleground for the First Amendment:

A search warrant shows police were looking for evidence that a reporter had run an improper computer search to confirm an accurate report that a local business owner applying for a liquor license had lost her driver’s license over a DUI.

The owner and publisher of the Record, Eric Meyer, along with First Amendment advocates and journalism organizations from across the country, have said the raid went too far.

Police seized computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the newspaper, its reporters and the home of the publisher. Meyer said police injured a reporter’s finger while taking away her cellphone.

 

THE BASIC BACKGROUND: The newspaper staff and restaurant owner Kari Newell had a bit of a beef when Newell had its journalists removed her establishment during a public meet and greet  with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner.

Shortly after that, the paper received a tip about Newell’s criminal record:

A confidential source contacted the newspaper, Meyer said, and provided evidence that Newell had been convicted of drunken driving and continued to use her vehicle without a driver’s license. The criminal record could jeopardize her efforts to obtain a liquor license for her catering business.

A reporter with the Marion Record used a state website to verify the information provided by the source. But Meyer suspected the source was relaying information from Newell’s husband, who had filed for divorce. Meyer decided not to publish a story about the information, and he alerted police to the situation.

“We thought we were being set up,” Meyer said.

Police contacted Newell, who alleged the paper had “illegally obtained” information about her, thus leading to the charges against the paper, as well as the raid on the newsroom and multiple private homes.

 

FIRST-AMENDMENT FALLOUT: The amendment allows for freedom of the press and prohibits governmental interference in the gathering and dissemination of the news, with only a few extreme circumstances warranting this level of aggression.  To put this in perspective, former President Richard Nixon didn’t even stoop to this level against the New York Times in relation to the Pentagon Papers situation, so if you can make Tricky Dick look restrained, your actions are pretty egregious.

More than 30 media organizations signed on to a letter from the Reporters Committee For Freedom Of The Press, condemning the raid, stating “there appears to be no justification for the breadth and intrusiveness of the search—particularly when other investigative steps may have been available—and we are concerned that it may have violated federal law strictly limiting federal, state, and local law enforcement’s ability to conduct newsroom searches.”

The Marion Police Department is defending its actions via a Facebook post, explaining that, while, yes, in most cases they should use a subpoena, and yes, in most cases, they should be less aggressive and no, they really can’t tell you WHY they did what they did, these extraordinary measures were necessary. Now, stop asking so many questions and go outside and play…

 

READ THIS NOW: Here’s an interview with the newspaper’s owner, Eric Meyer, via The Handbasket that both explains what happened in the raid as well as some backstory on the paper’s investigation into Police Chief Gideon Cody.

The paper was looking into allegations that Cody retired from his previous post to dodge potential charges of sexual misconduct, which could have led to punishment from that department.

 

THIS STUPIDITY GOES TO 11: A few random thoughts that explain how truly stupid this situation is…

  • Astounding Level of Stupid, Part I: The paper DIDN’T run anything on Newell, instead turning the tip over to the police. If the paper had ACTUALLY COMMITTED A CRIME, would the staffers have called the cops and made a point of alerting them to it? That has the same internal logic as telling the cop who pulled you over, “Officer, I know I was going a little fast, but it’s only because I need to get this trunkload of heroin to Fat Jimmy’s criminal hideout before 5 p.m.”
  • Astounding Level of Stupid, Part II: After the paper told the police about the situation, the police told Newell about the situation and Newell then complained about the paper at a city council meeting. This prompted the paper to run a story that corrected record about the situation. In short, if Newell had said nothing, nobody would likely have known anything about this entire issue. Now, half the planet knows about Newell and her DUI.
  • Astounding Level of Stupid, Part III: The easiest way to know this situation has no merit is this quote from the chief and follow up paraphrase: “I believe when the rest of the story is available to the public, the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated,” Mr. Cody said. He declined to discuss the investigation in detail. Wait… Where have I heard someone say that before? Oh, yeah! Here, and here, and here… Oh, hell, just Google “I will be vindicated” or “The truth will come out” and then look for a follow up story that involves the length of the prison term involved…

 

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: This is the case of trying to kill a fly with a sledgehammer, and it’s not even clear if a fly was there to be killed.

  • Newell alleged that the paper had “illegally obtained” private information about her DUI arrest, offering no real proof that a) the paper did so or b) how she knew how the paper supposedly illegally did anything. If an allegation this flimsy is all it takes to get the police to raid a home or business, I have a list of folks who are in for a bad week…
  • Information is not “private” just because you don’t like people knowing about it. Embarrassing private details CAN be the source of legal wrangling when publicly exposed, but that’s not this. I’m sure Newell isn’t thrilled that people know about her DUI, suspended license and more, but it’s a matter of public record as a criminal offense.
    • Put another way: If I blogged about the various noises and phrases Amy utters while we have sex, that would fit the “private information” area and she could have legal options of a punitive nature. However, the police report related to how she murdered me for disclosing those noises and phrases on the blog would NOT be private, as police reports are public records. Make sense?

    • Information is also fair game for journalists when they receive it through open-record searches, news tips and other similar things the paper is said to have done here. Even IF (big IF) someone else had done something illegal to find information about Newell and then provided it to the newspaper, the law dictates that the paper is free of wrongdoing as long as it didn’t take part in the illegal acts.

More on this will clearly become part of the blog as more on this becomes available…