Journalistic Scandal
Consider the case of journalist Judith Miller, a writer for the New York Times, who reported inaccurate information from an unreliable source that led to the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Times fired Miller, and she lost credibility among her readers, other journalists, and policymakers. These journalists may have the best intentions, but their reputation is on the line if they reference a bad source.
Read this description of journalism scandals, followed by two examples of when writers famously published sketchy or completely fabricated research: Jonah Lehrer and Sabrina Erdely. Think about how their actions affected their credibility and their careers.
Journalism scandals are high-profile incidents or acts, whether intentional or accidental, that run contrary to the generally accepted ethics and standards of journalism, or otherwise violate the 'ideal' mission of journalism: to report news events and issues accurately and fairly.
As the investigative and reporting face of the media, journalists are usually required to follow various journalistic standards. These may be written and codified, or customary expectations. Typical standards include references to honesty, avoiding journalistic bias, demonstrating responsibility, striking an appropriate balance between privacy and public interest, shunning financial or romantic conflict of interest, and choosing ethical means to obtain information.
Journalistic scandals are public scandals arising from incidents where, in the eyes of some party, these standards were significantly breached. In most journalistic scandals, deliberate or accidental acts take place that run contrary to the generally accepted ethics and standards of journalism, or otherwise violate the 'ideal' mission of journalism: to report news events and issues accurately and fairly.
Common Characteristics
Journalistic scandals include plagiarism, fabrication, and omission of information; activities that violate the law, or violate ethical rules; the altering or staging of an event being documented; or making substantial reporting or researching errors with the results leading to libelous or defamatory statements.
All journalistic scandals have the common factor that they call into question the integrity and truthfulness of journalism. These scandals shift public focus and scrutiny onto the media itself. Because credibility is journalism's main currency, many news agencies and mass media outlets have strict codes of conduct and enforce them, and use several layers of editorial oversight to catch problems before stories are distributed.
However, in some cases, investigations later found that long-established journalistic checks and balances in the newsrooms failed. In some cases, senior editors fail to catch bias, libel, or fabrication inserted into a story by a reporter. In other cases, the checks and balances were omitted in the rush to get an important, 'breaking' news story to press (or on air). Furthermore, in many libel and defamation cases, the publication would have had full support of editorial oversight in case of yellow journalism.
Source: Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_scandal
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