I was at work this past Tuesday and had student after student in my office so I COMPLETELY missed Obama’s inauguration and still haven’t seen it. Don’t worry for me too much though—my husband DVR’d it. (I’m declaring DVR’d as officially having “verb” status.) I was relieved to hear that I’d be able to still watch the entire event since I missed the live streaming coverage on my computer at work. Thank goodness for modern technology.

We have such hunger these days for instant knowledge. We want information about an airplane landing in the Hudson immediately. We set up Google alerts so we don’t miss important information-we want to be the first to know. We carry I Phones and Blackberries so that we can check the web and send/receive emails at all times. We have our settings set so that as soon as our big 80s hair is tagged in a Facebook photo we know all about it.

Certainly there is a difference between Suzy’s status update saying “Go Steelers!” or “Suzy just put the kids to bed” and knowing about the Dow dropping hundreds of points or Caroline Kennedy withdrawing her Senate bid. But, still.

Back during the 2000 election, Fox News declared George W. Bush the winner in Florida at 2:16am the morning after polls closed. Four minutes later, the other networks had made the same call. Fox News wanted to be first and was using simple exit polls as their source of information. They did not base their claim on information from Voter News Service, (which provides the major stations with exit polls and voting returns) and as a result, two hours later, each network had withrawn their claim.

http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T5599257810&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T5599257813&cisb=22_T5599257812&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=8213&docNo=25

It certainly isn’t unethical to want all of this instant information, but to not verify the facts is lazy and inadequate journalism.

In this age of instant gratification, ethical journalism can get lost in the shuffle. It is an industry challenge to try to be the first on the scene and the first to report the details. With newspapers dying off each day, it is crucial to retain journalistic ethics and integrity as we move more and more towards providing news more immediately. After the networks embarrassment during the 2000 elections, CNN gathered a panel of independent scholars to review its election night coverage and to make recommendations to help the network deliver fair, accurate and responsible election reporting in the future.

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/stories/02/02/cnn.statement/


The only hope for the future of true ethical journalism is to follow CNN’s lead and take precautions to avoid similar rushed behavior in the future. There will always be unethical journalists and networks, but it is my hope that the most solid and reputable of those will retain their value by delivering the truth to the public as accurately and quickly as possible.

I have to believe that people get into the field of journalism with a thirst for the truth and that thirst cannot be quenched by rushed and shoddy work. In the end, however, will the demand for immediate news and information simply steamroll over the longstanding ethics of a true journalism? Only time will tell…