Acclaimed journalist to deliver speech at IMU

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and Chicago Tribune editorial board member Clarence Page is scheduled to speak about the current ethical condition of the national media 8 p.m. tonight in the Indiana Memorial Union Whittenberger Auditorium. Page's lecture, entitled "Media Ethics is not an Oxymoron," caps off the 2004 Roy W. Howard National Reporting Competition day of celebration.\nThe Roy W. Howard National Reporting Competition is sponsored by the Scripps Howard Foundation in conjunction with the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism. Eight competition winners, undergraduate journalism students from across the country, begin the day of activities with a private noon luncheon in the IMU Tudor Room. \nAfter meeting face-to-face with the three competition judges, each winning student will receive his or her Roy W. Howard National Reporting award during a dinner reception in the IMU Federal Room. The competition theme of each student story focused on campus and community coverage of events, issues, trends or personalities, according to the Howard Lecture program.\nSchool of Journalism Dean Trevor Brown said many campus community members welcome Page's arrival, since recent national journalists such as former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair and USA Today reporter Jack Kelley have inflicted scars onto the projected objective face of journalism because of make-believe, inaccurate and deceitful styles of reporting. \n"We think the topic is very timely. We are very concerned about more embarrassing scandals that have occurred in journalism," Brown said. "It is good to have a Clarence Page come and say, 'We really are an ethical profession.'" Brown said the discouraging, disparaging and embarrassing effects of unethical journalists employing unethical tactics to obtain unethical means in fictional storytelling does not entirely undermine the fact-finding mission at the heart of professional journalism.\n"There are two main purposes for this. The first is to pay tribute to the career and accomplishments of Roy W. Howard. The second is to connect the speaker to the annual journalism competition. This is an opportunity to hear some of the same things we talk about in the classroom," he said. "(Journalist) ethical practices are conducted in the open. As the joke often goes, we publish mistakes while doctors bury theirs. Our mistakes are very open to public perception."\nIU alumni Derek Talkington said he believes journalists are especially susceptible to biased opinions and preconceived agendas. As a result, journalists often use unethical plot organizations and loaded words as subjective tactics of persuading an audience toward a particular agenda, he said.\n"Journalists are more connected to world events; a lot of that is political. Instead of creating a story, journalists should only be reporting stories: who, what, why, when, where and how. Creating implies a journalist has added his or her own views of interpretation," he said. "For example, many stories begin and end with loaded journalist commentary. A little contrasting opinion is thrown in the middle to pretend as if the story is balanced."\nBrown said he hopes Page addresses the public misperception of the journalist as a used-car salesman or politician.\n"I think a lot of folks like to joke about journalism as an unethical profession. Most journalists take their ethics very seriously," he said. "Do journalists make mistakes? Yes, just like anybody in any profession."\nIn addition, Brown said campus community members receiving media messages are responsible for interpreting the information transmitted to them from journalists. \n"If you are going to take your responsibility as a citizen seriously, you can't rely on one source of media. No one medium can supply you with everything you need to know," Brown said. "The glory of democracy is found in the range of media and in the range of available publications." \nRegardless of the outcome of Page's message to the campus community tonight, Talkington said he can't help but perceive the absurdity in the ethical practices of national media outlets, television and print journalism. \n"Ideally, philosophy majors emphasizing in logic should be doing all the reporting," Talkington said. "I don't think you can get a real idea of how to interpret events without logic. Logic also helps structure a story."\n-- Contact staff writer David A. Nosko at dnosko@indiana.edu.