Lazy Journalism

In light of the recent SI.com article critizing the Rutgersfan.com message board, I will post an op-ed essay I wrote for my media ethics class on this issue. While the fans obviously show a lack of class and tact, they still should be able to make fools of themselves in a somewhat private setting. Unfortunately, many journalists feel like taking the shortcut is worth compromising the ethical standards they should be abiding by.

In this technological age, many ethical issues have surfaced that the creators of ethics codes like the one used by the Society of Professional Journalists could not have imagined when they established them. Recently, journalists have been using quotes from message board posters in order to provide material for their stories, despite the fact message board posters not knowing or consenting that their opinions would be appearing in these stories. After Indiana University hired Kelvin Sampson as its new men’s basketball coach, ESPN.com columnist Pat Forde cited a post from peegs.com, an Indiana fan site hosted by rivals.com, calling Sampson “Mike Davis 2.0.”

Davis, the embattled former Hoosiers coach who resigned in February, endured a tough six years trying to replace the legendary Bobby Knight. The large Indiana fan base has been fractured since Knight’s ugly dismissal in 2000. While people may be giving their opinions on a public domain, they do not expect their thoughts to be published on ESPN.com. According to the rivals.com terms of agreement, Rivals may give a third party the right to use information published on their different networks. However, while Forde legally had a right to use that information, as a respected journalist for a prominent news organization, he should be held to an ethical standard that goes beyond legal precedent.

If asked whether that anonymous poster would want his opinions published on ESPN.com, Forde assuredly would say no. Fans should be allowed to engage in public discourse with each other without having to wonder if their thoughts will surprisingly appear elsewhere. Considering the lukewarm to the hiring of Sampson, Forde should not have had a problem finding a source to support the premise of his story, that Sampson may not be the hire to unite the fractured Hoosiers fanbase, even with his strong on the court credentials at his previous school, Oklahoma.

Now, Forde’s use of this material was wrong, but it did not provoke nearly the same reaction as Chicago Tribune columnist Rick Morrisey’s story in May 2005 about the Illini Board, the popular message board discussing University of Illinois athletics. The column was written the day heralded basketball recruit Jon Scheyer chose to attend Duke University over Illinois. Scheyer, made this choice even though his high school coach is brother of popular Illinois head coach Bruce Weber. Illinois fans posted a number of messages on the Illini Board, some of them very emotional. And again, these posters were making comments to a community of fellow fans.

Morrissey, who surely understood the disappointment among Illinois fans, capitalized on their emotions to write a charged story on the Illini Board, using some of the more extreme comments to disparage this group of Illinois fans. Although it was necessary to mention the disappointment among Illinois fans, what Morrisey did was deceptive and unethical.

The heart of both of these matters is that they both involved deception. Although these message boards may be public forums, and the operators of them may grant access to their information to journalists, the fact remains that many people’s thoughts have been used without their knowledge and consent. While broad statements about a message board itself is okay, identifying individual posters by name or even by their username, goes too far. These people should be allowed to communicate their thoughts with fellow posters without having to worry about their thoughts being published. Although Forde’s story did not blatantly attack a fanbase unfairly like Morrisey’s, he still quoted a poster’s thoughts without his permission, and while he may not have directly mentioned his name, his identity could easily be discovered by anyone reading the story. Morrisey’s story is simply unethical, and violated any ethical bounds he knows and apparently abides by only when it’s convenient. Legal standards may be one thing, but a good journalist should go above and beyond this and always operate in an ethical and honest manner.