April 30 2010 - Tip/Conference On Journalism Ethics

Journalism leaders, media experts and scholars will gather for the "New Journalism, New Ethics?" conference at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Friday, April 30, to discuss emerging ethical issues for nonprofit forms of journalism and whether traditional standards apply to the use of new media and social media.

It's the second annual conference on journalism ethics at UW-Madison, hosted by the Center for Journalism Ethics at UW-Madison's School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Stephen J.A. Ward, Burgess Professor of Journalism Ethics and director of the Center for Journalism Ethics, says that with the media revolution forcing a revolution in ethics, now is the time for a conference of journalists, academics, students and the public to explore the future of journalism ethics.

A report on ethical issues for the new, nonprofit investigative newsrooms, based on a January roundtable discussion of leaders in nonprofit journalism, will be released next week and available online before the conference begins at

www.journalismethics.info. The report will then discussed during a morning session of the conference. Also, Charles Lewis, founding executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop and founder of the Center for Public Integrity, will speak about transparency, standards and practices in what he calls a "new journalism ecosystem."

He will be followed by keynote speaker Jon Sawyer, executive director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, whose talk is titled "Bridging the Gaps: Holding True to Old-Media Values in a New-Media World." Other speakers at include Brant Houston, Knight Chair in Investigative Reporting at the University of Illinois and former director of Investigative Reporters and Editors; Martin Kaiser, editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors; Andy Hall, director of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Reporting; and Phil Rosenthal, media columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

The event runs from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Fluno Center, 601 University Ave. Registration is free for students and $25 for others; register by filling out the form on the center's Web site, http://journalismethics.info/. Journalists who attend to cover the conference do not have to pay the registration fee.