Laws, Ethics, and
News Literacy

There’s a checklist for pretty much every story that we write in the ODYSSEY. These checklists outline the requirements for any story to be published, going into detail about what the standard for each element needs to be. By using checklists with boxes such as “completed transcription” and “uploaded audio,” I can make sure I’m acting ethically as a journalist and hold members of staff accountable when they’re not.

At first, fact-checking was something I struggled with as a journalist. I lacked the ability to recognize when I needed specific information in an interview, so I was constantly having to reach back out to confirm details. That still sometimes happens, but I’ve gotten a lot better at noticing when I need to confirm something in an interview – of course, I still go back behind the stakeholder and double check with other pertinent sources. 

In Journalism I, we watched the film “Shattered Glass,” which showed the story of New Republic journalist Stephen Glass’s downfall after rival outlets proved he had been fabricating his stories. Our adviser asked us to respond to Glass’s behavior, noting specifically when he had breached the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics and why his behavior was unethical. 

After each issue of the ODYSSEY newsmagazine is published, we go back over the old magazine and look for errors – these could be formatting, grammatical, or anything that is out of place. When we find these, we put them in a document with the specific location of the error and publish this list in the next issue of the magazine. I did some corrections for the second issue of the magazine, which helped hold ourselves accountable for mistakes we made.

Being ethical and reporting on a diverse array of topics and sources go hand in hand – if I’m not doing one, then I’m not doing the other. When I pitch stories, I always ask myself two questions: if it is something the average CCHS student cares about and if it accurately represents the CCHS community. If the answer to either is no, then the story is scrapped. 

I’ve attended sessions at the Georgia Scholastic Press Association and Southern Interscholastic Press Association on the importance of journalism ethics and law. These sessions showed me what ethics means outside of the high school setting, when much information is easily available and the stakes are relatively low.