ONA on | Real-time ethics

By now, the story of the Rocky Mountain News reporter who used Twitter to live-tweet a little boy's funeral has been the subject of countless newsroom meetings and conference panels. Just last week, a photographer live-tweeted a potential suicide, a young woman on bridge in Seattle who was about to jump. David Boardman, Executive Editor of the Seattle Times, posed this question on Twitter: "Anyone else think it's bad form, and dangerous, for a journalist to tweet about a potential suicide bridge jump in progress?" The Online News Association will bring you "ONA on," its first in a series of online radio panels on issues in digital journalism, this coming Tuesday, August 31, from 4 - 5 p.m. EST / 1 - 2 p.m. PST on the ethics of real-time journalism. With Twitter and other live reporting technologies used more frequently in newsrooms -- think more in the palms of journalists -- what are the rules of the road when covering such sensitive topics as funerals, attempted suicides, stand-offs and like. And with these updates, reports and photos all moving across the Internet and "going live" within seconds, are we sacrificing any ethics and fair practices from the past that we may still apply to the mission of our work? These kinds of questions and more, will be part of the conversation on our panel. David Boardman, executive editor of the Seattle Times; Anthony Moor, Lead Local Editor of Yahoo news and Pam Fine, Knight Chair for News, Leadership and Community at University of Kansas and ethics expert, will talk these issues out with moderator Amy Webb, CEO of Webbmedia Group and ONA Board of Directors member. During this important show, we'll discuss the ethics of using social media to report events in real time. This show was produced by Cory Haik and Amy Webb, ONA Board of Directors. http://www.journalists.org.