Wither Ethics?

I have to say that the past couple of weeks have great fodder if I were teaching a journalism class (Mr. Strukel, you out there?).

And it really makes me question where journalism is going.

The first big moment, for me, was during the Michael Jackson death coverage.

TMZ.com apparently became the "go-to" source for much of the breaking developments.

There's one small problem, though. You see, TMZ holds its website to different ethical standards than the mainstream media.

They can report something and just say "we're told" ... without ever having that 2nd or 3rd level confirmation.

But, what's really disturbing to me, is when local television stations use TMZ as a source for their own stories in the evening news.

At least one station in this market does that on a regular basis. Perhaps they feel it's acceptable, given their "tabloid" format.

I happen to know they prefer to "push the envelope" when it comes to journalism.

But, at what point is the line crossed ... at what point do you stop trying to confirm anything (even if it's "celebrity news"), and just go with what you think is correct?

Even CNN got into the act during the early hours of the Jackson coverage.

They actually ran a graphic over their coverage that used the phrase "unconfirmed reports." Isn't their job actually to confirm those reports before passing them along?

But, what really caught my eye about the downfall of ethics occurred yesterday.

And this time, it wasn't at a broadcast station ... it was in a newspaper (and on their website.)

The NY Post (another "tabloid" outfit) reported on the Erin Andrews/peephole video story.

It's certainly salacious. A beautiful ESPN sideline reporter is surreptitiously video taped naked through a peephole drilled into her hotel room wall.

Most mainstream papers and websites picked up on this.

But, the NY Post took things to the next level. You know, instead of just running the file photo of Erin Andrews like everyone else (including me here), the Post actually used screen captures FROM THE ILLEGAL VIDEO.

Yes, they put black bars over what Monty Python famously called the "naughty bits."

But, essentially, this means someone at the Post either downloaded or viewed the illegal tape, which by that point in time had actually been yanked from its originating website under threat of lawsuit by ESPN and Andrews' lawyer.

Now, nothing disappears in the Internet forever ... reading comments on the Andrews story on various sites, commenters have made clear that the video is still available on various peer-to-peer torrenting sites out there.

But, here the point. The video was captured illegally. It was distributed illegally.

So, why on Earth would a newspaper actually use photos from that "illegal" video?

Simple ... to sell papers. And to flush journalism right down the pipes.

It's telling that those photos ran within days of the death of Walter Cronkite.

I'm sure he's looking down from above ... shaking his head at what his business has become.