Law, Ethics and News Literacy
Ethics in journalism is something I feel is very important. Now, as Editor-In-Chief of my school's publication, I feel the extra responsibility of ensuring all our journalists are held to high standards and pursue their reporting in an ethical manner. At the start of the school year, I made sure to explain editor and writer responsibilities to our staff and go over our policies. These are Dateline's policies, which are published on the website:
This school year presented itself with new challenges in the world of journalism: Artificial Intelligence. While editing a particular story by a new writer, I had a feeling it had been written by AI, based on the eloquent, yet jumbled writing style. I consulted the Managing Editors and we then checked the story with an AI checker. It reported that the article had almost entirely been written by AI. We faced the ethical dilemma of how to approach the situation and whether to report the writer to the faculty advisor or the school's Honor Council. After discussing with the Managing Editors, I decided to tell the writer we wold not publish his story unless he re-wrote it without AI. He later edited it, but it still came out to be written significantly by AI, according to the AI checker. So, I decided not to publish the article at all. I also wrote an AI policy for the publication, as one hadn't existed before, as to ensure proper steps would be taken should the situation occur again. Furthermore, it would ensure the perpetrators of the policy would be held accountable and reported to the Editor-in-Chief and Faculty Advisor. I also announced the policy at a staff meeting to make the staff aware of the issue and the new policy. I told the Faculty Advisory about the situation we had faced and the student responsible as to make her aware. Below is the new policy, which is included in the International Dateline Handbook.
