Media panel to take up topic
Has ‘journalism ethics’ become an oxymoron?

Reporters exposed for fabricating stories and plagiarizing articles. Books blasting “spin sisters” and “liberal media bias” in network newsrooms. Rumors that celebrities get paid for news interviews that boost ratings and profit margins for TV entertainment programming. It’s led some media watchdogs to say “journalism ethics” has become an oxymoron.

But is such broad criticism justified?

A panel of distinguished journalists will tackle the topic of journalism ethics during Communication Studies Week on campus the week of March 22.

News anchor Diane Larson of WTVG-TV in Toledo will moderate the panel discussion at 6 p.m. Tuesday in 202B Bowen-Thompson Student Union. Panelists will include:

• Kenny Irby, founder and head of visual journalism at the Poynter Institute, a school for future reporters, working journalists and journalism teachers, in St. Petersburg, Fla.;

• Former BGSU Monitor editor Paul Kostyu, now Columbus bureau chief for the Copley Newspaper chain and a nominee this year for the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting;

• Eva Parziale, chief of the Associated Press bureau in Columbus;

• Brian Trauring, news director of WTVG-TV in Toledo, which is owned by ABC, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Co., and

• Tom Walton, editor of The (Toledo) Blade.

Larson, Kostyu, Parziale and Walton are all graduates of Bowling Green.

Among questions to be posed to the panel are: Was it a good idea for 600 journalists to serve as “embedded reporters” with the U.S. Armed Forces during the war in Iraq? Are minority points of view under-represented in the news? And does the media go overboard in covering negative stories, such as the trial of Martha Stewart, the murder of Laci Peterson and the abduction of Elizabeth Smart?

The event is co-sponsored by the School of Communication Studies and the Social Philosophy & Policy Center.

The panel discussion is just one of nearly two dozen special events planned on campus during the week. Other highlights include:

• A session on public relations for political candidates led by Mark Luetke, president of Funk Luetke Skunda Marketing Inc. in Toledo, at 4:30 p.m. Monday in 117 Olscamp Hall;

• “Investigative Reporting: Uncovering Tiger Force Atrocities,” a presentation by Blade reporters Michael D. Sallah and Mitch Weiss, Pulitzer Prize nominees for investigative reporting, at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in 202B Bowen-Thompson Student Union;

• “Communication in Tunisia: State Control in a World of Globalization,” a lecture by visiting Fulbright Scholar Hamadi Reddisi of the University of Tunis, at 2:30 p.m. Thursday (March 25) in 308 Union; and

• “Communicating During 9-11,” a talk by BGSU alumna Kathleen Frankart, who grew up in Carey and now is vice president of public affairs for Verizon Communications in New York, at 12:30 p.m. Friday (March 26) in 201 Union.

All of the programs are open to the public free of charge. The complete schedule of events is available at http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/commst/COMMWEEK04.htm.