A CONVERSATION WITH THE AUDIENCE

This from former ETSPJ president and national  SPJ  Membership  Committtee chairman John Huotari:

In today’s world of 24-hour access to information, the need for credible, fair reporting is more important than ever.

And the Society of Professional Journalists is hosting a series of town hall meetings this week, Ethics Week, that are focused on restoring journalistic credibility by helping readers, viewers, listeners and Web site visitors understand what credible journalism is.

The East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists has been selected as one of 10 chapters across the country to host one of these town hall meetings. The local meeting begins at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Toyota Auditorium of the Howard Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville.

The Baker Center is co-sponsoring the event.

The meeting will begin with a discussion about citizen journalism, bloggers and reader comments on Web sites. As more and more media businesses cut their news staffs, editors and news directors may rely on citizen journalists to fill vacancies or to provide first-hand accounts of events. However, do these citizen journalists operate under the same ethical guidelines as trained journalists? Bloggers and Web site visitors often comment on popular issues and stories presented in the news, which can blur the line between factual information and opinions.

SPJ’s large and diverse membership consistently identifies ethics as one of the organization’s most important missions. The SPJ Code of Ethics, first adopted in 1926, is an industry standard. One element of the code is to “invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct.”

During the town hall meeting, the audience is encouraged to ask questions about how local stories are covered and the decision-making process of editors and reporters as they go about their jobs of covering and presenting the news.

The panel will include Jack McElroy, editor of the News Sentinel in Knoxville; Bill Shory, WBIR-TV news director; Michael Grider, VolunteerTV.com interactive producer; and Glenn Reynolds, UT law professor and founder of Instapundit.com.

Marianna Spicer, Cable News Network’s (CNN) executive editor for news standards in Atlanta, will moderate the program.

For more information, call ETSPJ President Mia Rhodarmer at (423) 337-7101 or e-mail her at editor@advocateanddemocrat.com.