One of those students, Kendra Marr now works for Politico (comments at link about this controversy).
Another student of Professor Protress, Nomaan Merchant, now works for for AP (declined to comment for article).
Shocked shocked that this is being made public.
Shocked too that PoliticO and AP have unethical people on their staff.
Professional journalism is under assault by these unprofessional activists in journalist clothes.
If the person answering the door asked for ComEd ID and couldn’t produce it, spooking a crime-witness relative into knifing the student, would it have served the “higher good”?
(Actually, I suspect David Protess is such a twisted Lefty that he might even say “Yes!”)
The trouble with this formulation of when surreptitious methods are acceptable is that the determination of what constitutes "information vital to the public" is made by journalists looking at the world through deeply liberal-tinted glasses. Any level of subterfuge and deception would be deemed acceptable to, for example, dig out dirt on Sarah Palin, but most of today's journos would shrink in horror at the thought of using such methods to try to get access to Obama's college records.
Frankly, looking at most of the practicing journos today, I find the term "journalistic ethics" to be an oxymoron.
It’s unethical to lie in an attempt to gain information that would possibly free an innocent prisoner but it is not unethical to lie when reporting news? It’s not unethical to flagrantly support one political party over another?
I think the investigators could find other things to investigate.
What a bunch of absurd posers.
All journalists are liars.
They long ago left any ethics they ever might have had, at the curb when they became card-carrying, full time, message-crafting democrat party propagandists.
Pravda had more ethics than US journalists.
Jim Romenesko’s blog at Poynter online has been keeping up with this. This blog is one of the more comprehensive sites if one is interested in the ‘journalism’ trade.
Medill profs don’t expect Protess to return from his leave
“News”, wasn't that once the stuff of individual letters, or brought by travelers?
Newspapers, Journals, etc were historically and notoriously one sided. They were published to present a point of view. Libel and vitriol and outright lies were common. Words like scurrilous described the contents, and duels were often the result.
Sometime in the last century the myth has grown up about an unbiased, fair, balanced, honest professional news. That's bunk, always has been, always will be. That's why we have the 1st Amendment - get both sides out.
“he altered an email to make it more accurate”
The “Fake but Accurate” defense. Smarter than the Rather family if he used the right type font.
Let's see. Hmmmmm. By this definition I estimate that there are about a dozen journalists in this country.
Northwestern University...hmmmm...they’ve been in the news lately...what was it for...Oh! Yeah! This is Sex Toy U! I thought all the dildos at Northwestern were in the sex toy class, but it turns out they teach journalism, too.
Isn't the professor talking about the same thing that Giles and O'Keefe did to bring down ACORN when they LIED about who they were to get the story?
It looks to me like there is a bit of hypocrisy on this thread.