What happened to the news media in America - Have we returned to the era of Yellow Journalism?

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Do Journalists embrace ethics and avoid conflicts of interest?

Once upon a time, my favorite Scottish philosopher Edmund Burke in the 18th century coined the term "Fourth Estate" to describe the press.  It resulted from an attempt to distinguish the actions and interests of networked societies from those of the mass media.

By acting as a watchdog on other estates at the time, the First through Third Estates being clergy, nobility, and secular authorities, (the latter meaning civil law rather than religious law), the emerging profession of journalism elevated itself to the others' status and level.

Thanks to technology advances, we now have the term “Fifth Estate” to explain our collective ability to share information, to create communities, and to organize social movements through online networks.

With the proliferation of high-speed blabber in cyber space came the disintegration of truth and ethics.  Today, most people do not trust the news media no matter where it hides in society, as it seems to have lost its ethical foundation.

What is it in America that keeps our news media from being objective?

Have we returned to the era of "Yellow Journalism" in America?  You be the judge.

Quote by Joseph Pulitzer

Just what constitutes the era of Yellow Journalism re-emerging in America that dominated our newspapers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The "Yellow Fever" of Journalism

Yellow Journalism is a term first coined during the famous newspaper wars between the legendary publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer II.

Pulitzer's paper, the New York World, and Hearst's New York Journal changed the content of newspapers adding more sensationalized stories and increasing the use of drawings and cartoons.

As newspapers published more and more cartoons, Pulitzer began to publish a cartoon of his own that he titled "The Yellow Kid" in 1896.  Created by R. F. Outcault, the cartoon became one of many objects fought over between Hearst and Pulitzer during their bitter and public rivalry.

Hearst later lured Outcault and his cartoon from Pulitzer by offering him an outrageous salary.  Pulitzer then published yet another version of the cartoon very similar to "The Yellow Kid" to continue competing with Hearst.

With so much competition between the newspapers, the news was over-dramatized and altered to fit story ideas that publishers and editors thought would sell the most papers and stir the most interest for the public so that news boys could sell more papers on street corners.

They often used the "Yellow Kid" cartoons to sensationalize stories and discredit the stories of other newspapers. Swaying public opinion on important issues such as the Spanish-American war was a frequent use of the cartoons.

Newspapers of the era did not practice the objectivity that newspapers and other news media supposedly strive for today.

The Society of Professional Journalists

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi, established in April 1909 at DePauw University, is one of the oldest organizations representing journalists in America.

The stated mission is to promote and defend the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of the press; encourage high standards and ethical behavior in the practice of journalism; and promote and support diversity in journalism.

There are nearly 300 chapters across the United States with more than 9,000 members of the media.

Major SPJ initiatives include a Legal Defense Fund that wages court battles to secure First Amendment rights; the Project Sunshine campaign, to improve the ability of journalists and the public to obtain access to government records; producing the magazine Quill; and conducting the annual Sigma Delta Chi Awards, honoring excellence in journalism.

It has also drawn up a Code of Ethics to inspire journalists to adhere to high standards of behavior and decision-making while performing their work.

Here is the full text of the Code of Ethics for Professional Journalists.

Society of Professional Journalists

Code of Ethics

PREAMBLE

Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.

Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility. Members of the Society share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society’s principles and standards of practice.

SEEK TRUTH AND REPORT IT

Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information. Journalists should:

Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error.

Deliberate distortion is never permissible.

Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing.

Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources’ reliability.

Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity. Clarify conditions attached to any promise made in exchange for information. Keep promises.

Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.

Never distort the content of news photos or video. Image enhancement for technical clarity is always permissible. Label montages and photo illustrations.

Avoid misleading re-enactments or staged news events. If re-enactment is necessary to tell a story, label it.

 Avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when additional open methods will not yield information vital to the public. Use of such methods should be explained as part of the story.

Never plagiarize.

Tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience boldly, even when it is unpopular to do so.

Examine their own cultural values and avoid imposing those values on others.

Avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status.

Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.

Give voice to the voiceless; official and unofficial sources of information can be equally valid.

Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent factor context.

Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.

Recognize a special obligation to ensure that the public’s business is conducted in the open and that government records are open to inspection.

MINIMIZE HARM

Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect. Journalists should:

Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.

Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief:

Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.

Recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone’s privacy.

Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.

Be cautious about identifying juvenile suspects or victims of sex crimes.

Be judicious about naming criminal suspects before the formal filing of charges.

Balance a criminal suspect’s fair trial rights with the public’s right to be informed.

ACT INDEPENDENTLY

Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know. Journalists should:

Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.

Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.

Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.

Disclose unavoidable conflicts.

Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.

Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.

Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; avoid bidding for news.

BE ACCOUNTABLE

Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other. Journalists should:

Clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct.

Encourage the public to voice grievances against the news media.

Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.

Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media.

Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.

About the Code of Ethics

The SPJ Code of Ethics is voluntarily embraced by thousands of journalists, regardless of place or platform, and is widely used in newsrooms and classrooms as a guide for ethical behavior.

The code is intended not as a set of “rules” but as a resource for ethical decision-making. It is not — nor can it be under the First Amendment — legally enforceable.

The present version of the code was adopted by the 1996 SPJ National Convention, after months of study and debate among the Society’s members. Sigma Delta Chi’s first Code of Ethics was borrowed from the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1926. In 1973, Sigma Delta Chi wrote its own code, which was revised in 1984, 1987 and 1996.

So what do you think about the journalists of today?

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Obama's Maximus Mea Culpa - NSA Aftermath

Far from the maddening lights and cameras to which he is accustomed, President Obama has been forced to offer the Maximus Mea Culpa to friends, allies and major investors alike as he is the first world leader caught with his fingers in the cookie jar of cyber scandal.

 

Leave it to the National Security Agency, NSA, the most mysterious of all our intelligence agencies in America, to give a top security clearance to a private NSA contractor who within a matter of months after getting the job was blabbering all the NSA secrets to an English newspaper.

 

 

Unfortunately these were not little secrets but really big stuff like the fact NSA bugged top secret computers of our friends and foes alike.  In fact they were hacked by the US 10-15 years ago and we have been listening in ever since.

 

From Germany and Britain to Russia and China, they were all hacked long ago and we have known all along what they were up to in terms of military, monetary or any other kind of policy.

 

 

Look what happened the past decade and a half.  There was Clinton's good time government with it's focus on strategic initiatives like global warming, alternate energy, legalizing fraudulent housing  mortgage programs, and increasing the duties of White House Interns.

 

Bush brought us the 911 terrorist attack, war in Iraq and Afghanistan and pretty much a collapsed economy, while Obama brought us, well, more of the same.  How many of our decisions were made based on information we "legally stole" from everyone else?

 

 

Better yet, if NSA was tapping phones and emails all these years surely they were aware of the 911 attack in advance.  Were they aware and did they sit on the information?  Let's hope not.

 

Regardless, they did bug all those nations and leaders through phones and the Internet so President Obama is now left with a lot of explaining to do and with a need to demonstrate a sincere Mea Culpa to those friends and allies.

 

Ironically, while it is Germany who demanded the first private meeting with the president people from Britain to the European Union are in the queue wanting similar assurances we have not compromised their national security.

 

Then there is China, our Sugar Daddy yet willing to join with Russia at any time to block Obama initiatives in the United Nations.  Many times Obama has accused the Chinese of "cheating" by hacking American computers.

 

The last time the White House made a big deal of showing how the hack attack had come from a very specific building in China.  I guess we know now how the White House knew about the Chinese hacking connection since the US has been hacking everyone for a very long time.  However, the truth that we were secretly hacking China the last 15 years while protesting Chinese attacks on us is quite disingenuous.

 

 

We need China as an ally to help us in Asia and the Middle East.  That is beyond the fact they are the largest owner of our national debt in the world.  And there is a great deal in import and export trade between the US and China significantly helping both nations.

 

We also need Russia as an ally in the same places.  Yet we accuse them both of all kinds of mischievous behavior.

 

 

Let us hope our national security policy is not guided by paranoid patriotism but by logic, ethics and a respect for individual rights and freedom.  I doubt the record as the NSA mess unfolds will be good news.

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Cyber Space -Virtual Playground of the Gods

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For over 15 years I have been writing about the potential of the Internet to bring good or evil to our world.  No doubt there are countless functions the cyber space universe can supply for the good of mankind.

 

Scientific and medical research both benefit from it with the ability to share data and speed up the processing of information.  It has been instrumental in the evolution of capitalism by dramatically changing the way people do business and get information.

 

Book publishers have been decimated by the Internet impact on book sales with e-books now able to instantly deliver books to your home or office at far less cost than you going to the nearest book store and fighting the crowds.

 

 

In music new artists abound on the Internet free of the shackles of the music publishers, the control of the producers and with the elimination of bribes paid to radio stations to only put certain artists in their playlist who are under contract to powerful record labels.

 

Both the fields of book and music publishing are in serious trouble, but maybe they earned it by trying to spoon feed the public certain authors and artists while refusing to take any risk on new artists in need of help thus strangling the heart and soul of American music, it's essential creative energy and powerful will to take risks and push the envelope.

 

The digital revolution is also extending it's tentacles into the movie and television business and once again is serving as an instigator of long overdue change to yet another industry that was growing irrelevant with it's risk aversion and obsession of control of artists, scripts and productions.

 

Thanks to our virtual world on the Internet books, records and movies are now available to us from old and new artists, every day there are new productions that actually have meaningful stories, coherent lyrics and happy endings that can have a lot of impact on the quality of life and attitude of people.

 

 

Of course in their last gasps of life the old guard are dumping junk on the market still using their worn out formulas of success to avoid risk, in other words, a propensity to simply copy the last successful movie and flood the market with multiple sequels is failing them at last.  With the Internet people now have the power to make choices for themselves and find the independent artists and companies long shunned by mainstream producers.

 

Beyond that there are many educational and informational benefits from the Internet.

 

But there are also dark sides to the Internet that have opened the floodgates to the demons who prey on the weaknesses and perversions which afflict a great many of our people.

 

About ten years ago I discovered an international prostitution ring operating on a popular social site.  After documenting how it worked, I was able to contact some of the actual prostitutes and interview them.

 

They told how they were recruited throughout Europe and were sent to major European cities, usually for a period of a few months, where they would rendezvous with the clients.  They were very high end, meeting in the best hotels and given the most expensive clothes and chauffeured limousines.

 

Every few months they were rotated to another major city to avoid detection by local and international police.  But they owed a lot of money to their "sponsors" and in fact were nothing but high-end sex slaves.  So I turned my information over to the owner of the Internet social service.  What a dumb thing to do.

 

Terrified (I guess) that I was going to post a news release accusing them of moral bankruptcy or something, instead of a thanks I got threats to sue me, sue me until I was bankrupt since they had billions and I was just a lowly reporter.  Some good did result as the highly sophisticated prostitution ring vanished from the Internet, no doubt resurfacing in some other location but no longer part of a mainstream social site..

 

 

To this day the Internet is used for every illegal and immoral purpose possible from child molestation to prostitution, pirating to pimping.   Then there is the DarkNet, that sinister and mysterious no man's land in cyber space where good intentions are swallowed up by evil results.  You should learn more about the DarkNet.

 

Finally, there is the world of cyber security where honesty and disclosure long ago vanished from the scene.

 

The culmination of Dark Force power manifests in cyber security where virtually everyone lies, or is required to lie, by the governments, private contractors and individual hackers involved in raping your rights to privacy and freedom.

 

I got to see this world from the inside out and rest assured what goes on in this arena most likely exceeds your wildest imagination.  Without a doubt the entire world was pretty much hacked over a decade ago and ever since competing interests from big and small countries and companies alike have been building profiles on you.

 

 

Every time I hear President Obama condemn China for hacking US top secret files I think of how many years the US has been hacking everyone else's top secret files in the world.  No one is without guilt when it comes to stealing records from other sovereign nations.

 

The bizarre NSA scandal dominating world news right now is the inevitable result of a lust for power and obsession with stealing information by governments, and powerful corporations.

 

One by one it seems our revered institutions are falling because they got a little too greedy and decided they were above the law.  Just look at the rash of illegal activity revealed recently in the fields of housing, financial speculation, energy pricing, international banking ad infinitum.

 

We need to pay a lot more attention to the administration and management of the virtual world.  It certainly serves some mighty beneficial purposes but it also serves some rather sinister masters and the Internet, unfortunately, is totally oblivious to characteristics like knowing right from wrong, knowing the value of children or young girls being forced into sexual slavery and perversion.

 

It certainly does not have the capacity to tell the truth as it has no basis for truth or lies.  And it has no empathy or compassion for people for there is no emotional sensitivity in virtual space.  In terms of a mathematical algorithm it is free of bias, prejudice, and discrimination because it is also free of morality, ethics and oversight.

 

Be informed and beware.

 

 

The following was published by The Telegraph from the United Kingdom.

 

We present the ten most famous hackers

 

1. Kevin Mitnick

 

Probably the most famous hacker of his generation, Mitnick has been described by the US Department of Justice as "the most wanted computer criminal in United States history." The self-styled 'hacker poster boy' allegedly hacked into the computer systems of some of the world's top technology and telecommunications companies including Nokia, Fujitsu and Motorola. After a highly publicised pursuit by the FBI, Mitnick was arrested in 1995 and after confessing to several charges as part of a plea-bargain agreement, he served a five year prison sentence. He was released on parole in 2000 and today runs a computer security consultancy. He didn't refer to his hacking activities as 'hacking' and instead called them 'social engineering'.

 

2. Kevin Poulson

 

Poulson first gained notoriety by hacking into the phone lines of Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM, ensuring he would be the 102nd caller and thus the winner of a competition the station was running in which the prize was a Porsche. Under the hacker alias Dark Dante, he also reactivated old Yellow Page escort telephone numbers for an acquaintance that then ran a virtual escort agency. The authorities began pursuing Poulson in earnest after he hacked into a federal investigation database. Poulson even appeared on the US television Unsolved Mysteries as a fugitive – although all the 1-800 phone lines for the program mysteriously crashed. Since his release from prison, Poulson has reinvented himself as a journalist.

 

3. Adrian Lamo

 

Adrian Lamo was named 'the homeless hacker' for his penchant for using coffee shops, libraries and internet cafés as his bases for hacking. Most of his illicit activities involved breaking into computer networks and then reporting on their vulnerabilities to the companies that owned them. Lamo's biggest claim to fame came when he broke into the intranet of the New York Times and added his name to their database of experts. He also used the paper's LexisNexis account to gain access to the confidential details of high-profile subjects. Lamo currently works as a journalist.

 

4. Stephen Wozniak

 

Famous for being the co-founder of Apple, Stephen "Woz" Wozniak began his 'white-hat' hacking career with 'phone phreaking' – slang for bypassing the phone system. While studying at the University of California he made devices for his friends called 'blue boxes' that allowed them to make free long distance phone calls. Wozniak allegedly used one such device to call the Pope. He later dropped out of university after he began work on an idea for a computer. He formed Apple Computer with his friend Steve Jobs and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

 

5. Loyd Blankenship

 

Also known as The Mentor, Blankenship was a member of a couple of hacker elite groups in the 1980s – notably the Legion Of Doom, who battled for supremacy online against the Masters Of Deception. However, his biggest claim to fame is that he is the author of the Hacker Manifesto (The Conscience of a Hacker), which he wrote after he was arrested in 1986. The Manifesto states that a hacker's only crime is curiosity and is looked at as not only a moral guide by hackers up to today, but also a cornerstone of hacker philosophy. It was reprinted in Phrack magazine and even made its way into the 1995 film Hackers, which starred Angelina Jolie.

 

6. Michael Calce

 

Calce gained notoriety when he was just 15 years old by hacking into some of the largest commercial websites in the world. On Valentine's Day in 2000, using the hacker alias MafiaBoy, Calce launched a series of denial-of-service attacks across 75 computers in 52 networks, which affected sites such as eBay, Amazon and Yahoo. He was arrested after he was noticed boasting about his hack in online chat rooms. He was received a sentence of eight months of "open custody," one year of probation, restricted use of the internet, and a small fine.

 

7. Robert Tappan Morris

 

In November of 1988 a computer virus, which was later traced to Cornell University, infected around 6,000 major Unix machines, slowing them down to the point of being unusable and causing millions of dollars in damage. Whether this virus was the first of its type is debatable. What is public record, however, is that its creator, Robert Tappan Morris, became the first person to be convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Morris said his 'worm' virus wasn't intended to damage anything and was instead released to gauge the size of the internet. This assertion didn't help him, however, and he was sentenced to three years probation, 4000 hours of community service and a hefty fine. A computer disk containing the source code for the Morris Worm remains on display at the Boston Museum of Science to this day.

 

8. The Masters Of Deception

 

The Masters Of Deception (MoD) were a New York-based group of elite hackers who targeted US phone systems in the mid to late 80s. A splinter group from the Legion Of Doom (LoD), they became a target for the authorities after they broke into AT&T's computer system. The group was eventually brought to heel in 1992 with many of its members receiving jail or suspended sentences.

 

9. David L. Smith

 

Smith is the author of the notorious Melissa worm virus, which was the first successful email-aware virus distributed in the Usenet discussion group alt. sex. The virus original form was sent via email. Smith was arrested and later sentenced to jail for causing over $80 million worth of damage.

 

10. Sven Jaschan

 

Jaschan was found guilty of writing the Netsky and Sasser worms in 2004 while he was still a teenager. The viruses were found to be responsible for 70 per cent of all the malware seen spreading over the internet at the time. Jaschan received a suspended sentence and three years probation for his crimes. He was also hired by a security company.

 

 

CPT Editor's Note:  If the bad guys (China, etc.) do all the hacking why are all or most all of the world's top ten hackers from America?  And isn't it true that the best of all hackers are the ones who don't get caught?

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