Recently, post-Blair "inside journalism"
talk has been rife with religious metaphor. Many professional
associations (see below) have called for brother and sister
journalists to attend ethics revival meetings. A few published
special reports focusing on the tenets of journalistic faith
and the sins of specific reporters within the cloistered
media society. Some journalists have publicly "confessed"
their sins. Talk of sin is in; but to confess is best.
For example, Adeel Hassan, in the July-August 2003
Columbia Journalism Review, "Blair's Victims: That Helpless Feeling," refers to "Blair's journalistic sins." Don Wycliff's essay
in a Special Issue Poynter Report (Fall 2003)
"Scandal,
Soul Searching and Solutions," recommends confession:
"Rather than pretending to be infallible, confess, correct
…." The Poynter Report includes many religious evocations
like Aly Colon's "Reflections on Sinners and Saints" that
would make even tough Saint Augustine proud. In "
Dodge
and Burn: A Photojournalistic Confession," Kenny F.
Irby cries out in the first line of his essay, "I couldn't
take it anymore, so I confessed."
Do journalists everywhere now feel compelled to confess, and
to ask citizens, peers, publishers and networks for forgiveness?
To find out, Journalist Confessional (a.k.a. JC) is a public
service; a free tool for journalists to confess, send, and
post confessions 24/7.
Since the times of the early scribes, unburdening guilt through
philosophical writings has served a dual purpose: as a private
therapeutic ritual and publishing confessions for public
consumption. Saint Augustine is the poster boy for such
soulful, and sometimes humorous, musings.
On a tight deadline?
Journalists Confessional.org offers a one-stop confessional site where
reporters may look inward, swiftly identify their sins by
referring to the Tenents of Journalistic Faith, unburden
their conscience, send amends, and even perform a public
mea culpa -- all in one easy-to-use format.*
*This site in no way comments negatively on any religion. but
borrows from and mingles the rituals and language of common
religions including, but not limited to, Roman Catholicism
and other Christian faiths, and Judaism.
Morals
and ethics traditionally are the purview of religions. Journalist
Confessional.org aims to expand upon the religious metaphors
that journalists seem amenable to using. This design attempts
to evoke the mood and ethical practices of religion; a good
thing for the journalists who recently need more than a
clue to become citizens as well as journalists. Amen.
1) Click on Confessional Booth Velvet Curtains to enter.
(Make sure sound is on in your computer for complete experience).
2) Carefully review the Tenets of Journalistic Faith (from the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics web page). After self-reflection, Click each box on left to select the Journalistic Practices that would have kept you among the faithful.
3) In the My Prayerful Thoughts box, add comments regarding
your atonement. (Click on box to start your comments, click twice to turn off music).
4) Click to choose one of three options for Penance.
5) After deciding whether to remain anonymous or to post,
you may then choose to email your confession privately
to yourself, for your records, or to others. Send your
editor a confession next time you commit the sin of
misspelling.
6) Try your assigned Ethical Rosary Beads for additional
penace. Click on beads to Go To "Ethics Sites":
St. Augustine: Confessions; Journalism.org Code of Ethics;
Spinoza: The Ethics Part I; Poynter on Ethics; ASNE
Code of Ethics Page.
7) After adding your name and Email (for Mea Culpa
Confessions only) or your media employer's name (also
optional).
8) Click on Button on left to View your Confession as it will be seen by others.
Click the Confess Button on right to Send your Confession.
(Turn your computer's sound on to enjoy full experience)
Love the sinner; hate the sin. Journalist Confessional.org
posts our database tracking of sinner's sins as a public
service that you will love to hate. To view, Click the "About
Journalist Confessional" button at top of this page
or Click on "See Sinner Stats" button below.
Data results include: total number of confessions Sent and
the sub-totals in each of the 3 Penance categories:
(A) Confessed but Anonymous; Confession Not Posted; (B)
Confessed, Anonymous but Confession Posted for peer and
public comments; and the ultimate--(C) Mea Culpa Confession,
where confessor publicly names him- or herself and Posts
his/her confession for all, to be readable forever [through
The Almighty Google Search].
Amen.
Other Sinner Stats are running totals of journalistic practices which would have kept journalists among the faithful; which Tenets of Journalistic Faith and how many; also, which media outlet has the most confessors; which specific tenets Journalist cited for atonement; and how many.
Bare witness to sin; soul search; give support with Amens and Hallelujahs.
Absolving shame through the act of private or public confession can
help brother and sister journalists come to terms with the
sources of their guilt. Divergences from Tenets of Journalistic
Faith--from the large-scale Blair and Glass scandals to
the smallest sin of misspelling--can all be avoided, even
within the demands of the daily news cycle. All the Journalist
must do is visit Journalist Confessional.org and review
and confess his/her sins on a weekly basis. Self-monitoring
emerges from a method of self-reflection. This is especially
true when we see ourselves in the light of the Ethical Tenets
of Journalistic Faith.
Group Work: Journalist Confessional.org notes that ethical
experts in journalism enjoy preaching in groups and in group
publications. We at Journalist Confessional.org encourage
group work for the loving and supportive treatment of ethically
challenged brethren, as an alternative to the public media-based
stoning of offenders. Therefore, we encourage the formation
of small community-based ethics groups. (Think prayer group:demonstrate
leadership. Why not ask your editor to hold community confession
meetings in the news room?) For individuals and within supportive
group settings, anonymous and sourced confessions on this
site may be commented on with Posted messages. Go to, Read
Other Journalists' Confessions, by Clicking "About
Journalist Confessional.org" button at top navigator
bar above, or use the button just below to read about who's
sinning and how; add your suggestions; your prayers and
words of encouragement on the Bulletin Board.
Other community activities involve the postings and reading of
messages in the Guest Book; and the announcement of events
on the Bulletin Board. Both buttons are found in the top
navigation bar above. If you are an unethical journalist
on the road to recovery, sign up for 12 Step Groups or attend
the workshop "Making amends to subjects or sources you've
wronged." Resources on this site also include links to
two 24 /7 Ethical Emergency Hotline numbers from Poynter and Society of Professional Journalists.
Journalist Confessional.org is the 2nd of 3 website artworks
created by Rhonda Roland Shearer (with Soojin Kim). Journalist
Confessional.org joins the first, Stinky Journalism.org
in what Shearer calls an interactive and theme-based trilogy
in time, and triptych in Internet space.
Rhonda Roland Shearer started as a bronze sculptor. Shearer realized
that in light of the Internet, an artist now has the option
to dispense with creating physical objects, and may work
instead directly with “posterity,” as the artist Marcel
Duchamp called the public. According to Duchamp, through
his or her choices, the “audience” or “spectator” co-creates
art along with the selections made by the artist. To this
definition Shearer replaces “art” with “history” itself.
She says, “History is the art; websites are the medium;
spectators are half the process.”
Click image to see Shearer's Work In Timeline
Artist Statement:
“Who needs objects when effecting change in beliefs through
historical intervention is more universally and directly
achieved. As an artist, I am free to dance through and across
boundaries of many fields of knowledge; see, think, measure
what is in front of me, and the fixed believers and those
in control of orthodoxy of any field be damned. Working
directly with history as the art, I can affect real emotions,
and changes in thought and vision – something I believe
painting and sculpture no longer can incite in the passive
viewer.” -- Rhonda Roland Shearer
, 1/15/04, New York City, Artist, Director, Art Science
Research Laboratory.
"Life Reflects Art;
History is Art;
So who needs Art…;
Who is Art anyway?" -- Rhonda
Roland Shearer 2004 (Shearer's answer to updating Andy Warhol's definition of
"What is Art?" -- "A boy's name.")
Rhonda Roland Shearer is also Director of Art Science Research
Laboratory. ASRL staff work with interns and graduate students,
focusing on interdisciplinary research projects at Columbia,
NYU and other institutions. Among our projects is an exploration
of how scientific methods can be used to test and verify
facts in journalism. In science, one expects that other
scientists will challenge and retest your data, so one is
extremely careful to build a case using facts that will
withstand the fiercest winds of challenge and doubt from
very smart people. Such ferocity from peers is scary at
first, but you learn to love it. After these formidable
minds look into your data set and conclusions (a transparency
the culture demands), your ideas are deemed factually supported,
and your results are proven to be repeatable, you realize:
“Ah ha.” This is the quality of work that I insist upon
for myself and everyone else. This rigor is required for
the process of science to work at its best. Being wrong
and making corrections is also an expectation and part of
the discipline of science. However, as in journalism, fraud,
sloppiness and distortion of data threaten the entire system
of trust upon which these businesses must depend. Our investigations
seek to develop new methods for the analysis and production
of journalism. Our goal, and the context for our research,
focuses on solid ethical practices performed with transparency
and public participation, rather than in closed media back-rooms
where decisions about fact and corrections are made.
Art Science Research Laboratory (ASRL) is a not-for-profit
[501(3)(c)] founded by Stephen Jay Gould and Rhonda Roland
Shearer in 1996. Initially funded with a significant grant
from Paul Mellon, ASRL interns from various disciplines
and institutions (including PHD candidates from NYU and
Columbia University) work together on research projects
using multiple investigative methods shared from technology,
science, law and history. The research outcomes are then
applied to: the creation of jointly authored publications;
development of educational curriculum and software; the
formation of web sites, and physical collections and archives.
The overall institutional goal for every ASRL research project
is the promotion of critical thinking and ethical practice.
Other specific goals within research projects are personal
and group achievement of discoveries, and the breaking of
boundaries among polarized disciplines and binary concepts
(such as competition versus cooperation; teaching versus
research; junior versus senior or amateur versus professional
scholarship; private versus public knowledge; as well as
the most over-arching and dissembling "dualism," that of
the arts versus the sciences).
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