• Question: What ethical guidelines must your employers follow?
• Answer:  They must seek to do the right thing.
  Yearly they sign a form affirming they will follow our ethical guidelines

• Question:  May I see these?
• Answer: Of course. They emphasize the following:
  1. Seek to report the truth in a truthful way.
  2. Serve the public interest
  3. Experience fair play (treat people with dignity)
  4. Maintain independence (don't be bought our or affiliated financially...
  5. Act with integrity
  6. Ensure the truth principle
     • We will not lie
     • We will not plagiarize
     • We will not alter photographs

• Question: Now, couldn't you enhance my looks a little in your newspaper?
• Answer:  Absolutely not, no more than we can give a balding man more hair. What is photographed is what we print.  We look for accuracy.
  There are many pictures that could look better cosmologically touched up, cleaner backgrounds, brighter clothes, different colors, but we don't do this.
  The only expectation would be the following scenario:  If I photographed you right now and your green jacket appeared to be black because of the shadows,, we could touch it up to make it appear closer to the truth.

• Question: I noticed you didn't run the controversial cartoon.
• Answer:  It doesn't have a news value.
  We are aggressive, however, in publishing news and newsworthy items.  We did write articles about the cartoon.
  We strive to be culturally sensitive.  Here in Norwich, we have 34 different languages spoken in the Norwich School System.  We take a very aggressive and proactive stand to understand the community. On the 1st and 15th of each month we feature a multi-cultural calendar.
  We strive to be a part of the community

• Question:  What else might you not publish except for the cartoon?
• Answer:  An anonymous source. 
• We can't afford to take a wrong hit.  Accuracy is key.  If the anonymous source is incorrect, decades of honest, trusted reporting are at stake.  Anonymous sources, however, are a cause of investigation. We will follow up to get more information.
  Everything must be documented - even to the extent of a simple quote of a little girl saying, "Isn't it fun!"  We need the girl's name.  If a picture is included, we need a waiver.
  In fact, we had a beautiful photo of students in a science fair, but were unable to run it because one girl wouldn't sign a waiver.

• Question:  Any question on the future of newspapers?
• Answer:   Our younger readers go online. This is where they find the most up-to-date information.  In fact, we continually update our paper online to provide our readers with the latest information.  The recent train accident with the grandmother was updated 11 times in one day.

• Question: Any comments on censoring with the internet?
• Answer:  Google is an information gathering, shareholder driven business. They are not in the news reporting business as we are.
  Foreigners must comes to understand, too, that they can trust us.  there are no repercussions in the American Free Press

• Question: Anything Else?
• Answer:  We have an ethical obligation to correct errors.  We do this on page 2.  We correct quotes or whatever, without repeating the web.
   

On 10/19/06 Daniel Axelrod spoke to our ethics class.

He provided the following insights:

Newspaper reporters are told never to accept anything  no gifts When items come into the Norwich Bulletin office, they are sold and the money goes to charity.

When children are photographed or interviewed, parents are contacted.

People are identified in pictures and included in the Bulletin with their permission. The exception is when there are vague bodies in the background that are not clearly identifiable.

Newspaper reporters maintain confidentiality - it is the best way to get continued leads. Otherwise one may get a good story for a day, but will never get another one from the same source.

There is a difference between libel and slander - written versus spoken word. Axelrod addressed the front-page article he wrote regarding my student who had overcome abuse from her husband. Axelrod emphasized he never said it happened. Rather lines such as "Lindsey said, Lindsey explained, Lindsey described....

Reporters present truthful unbiased news.