Category Archives: General

Topics which don’t easily fall into a specific category or which cover all categories

Why “can” is not the same as “should”

The case of a 21st Century good Samaritan whose act of kindness backfired should remind us all how treacherous are the waters around privacy and public interest and how good intentions can often go badly awry. It also serves to highlight an issue that should be front of mind for every principled journalist, the distinctions between ethical and legal behaviour … or why “can” is not the same as “should”. Read More

Why sorry seems to be the hardest word

Nobody likes publicly admitting they have made a mistake, and journalists are no exception. Indeed, to their readers, viewers and listeners, at times they seem actively averse to saying they are wrong, which is one reason why journalists languish at the lower levels of trust surveys. Another reason is that theirs is one of few professions that make explicit efforts to expose their work to public scrutiny, warts and all. Read More

Social media are mixed blessings for journalists

It is hard to imagine life without social media – or to remember the world before it. Whether you love them or hate them, use or avoid them, social media have been enormously influential, almost as powerful as the internet itself. That is partly because even those people not directly linked, liked, shared or tweeted on social media find themselves inescapably swimming in the social media soup created by everyone else. Read More

Social media trap for journalists

Social media have become both a blessing and curse for traditional media but two recent cases at opposite sides of the world have shown that news managers have the ability to choose which they will be if only they have a better understanding of how social media policies relate to the ethics underpinning their core business, together with the nerve to apply that understanding when times get tough. Read More

Poem that signalled the end of the Trump era

Journalism and literature occasionally cross paths – sometimes even swords – usually each making the other stronger, more relevant and lyrical. Amanda Gorman’s poem The Hill We Climb, written for and delivered at President Joe Biden’s 2021 Inauguration, is a good example of the power of such synergy, moving from timeless grandeur to the storming of the US Capitol by supporters of outgoing president Donald Trump. Read More

The weasels are still with us

Inveterate liars like Team Trump have come and gone down the ages but the language they – and others – use to disguise the disgusting lives on. Doublespeak or weasel words have a long history in public life even though most of us don’t understand what they mean. As languages grow, so too do weasel words, and journalists should not give them oxygen. Indeed, we should lead the fight to prick these bubbles of hot air. Read More

The aerobic art of interviewing

One of the most important skills of great journalism is not so much the questions we ask as the answers we hear. We get that by focusing on our interviewees and listening intently to what they say. Award-winning writer and broadcaster Siobhán McHugh writes about ‘aerobic listening’. It can be exhausting but it helps subjects to open up – like a force field. Here she shares the secret of aerobic listening in difficult interviews. Read More

American exceptionalism built wall with the world

It is the fate of all empires to be despised by their vassals. But that was before the Information Age. Now all bets are off. Now empires have the media tools to mould their image overseas while their foreign subjects can see right into the heart of their overlord’s domain. So why are Americans making such a mess of being a superpower? And what role do the media play in building a wall between the US and the rest of the world? Read More

Finding truth through common sense

In the days before the digital revolution, discovering truth seemed a relatively simple matter – find people we could trust and go with what they said. With the Internet and social media, things have become a lot more complicated. Information is everywhere and journalists are losing the ability to determine who to trust. So, let’s put some science back into common sense and use it to fight the scourge of the 21st Information Century – fake news. Read More

A right to be wrong?

At the height of Australia’s bushfire emergency, Michael Pengilly, the mayor of Kangaroo Island in Australia, attacked climate scientists and former US president Barack Obama, saying climate change was not connected with the island’s horrific fires. When criticised online, Pengilly said he had a right to air his opinions. He was not the first person in the democratic world to claim such a “right”. But does it exist? Read More