FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Feb. 20, 2007

Kathleen McPartland
530-898-4260
Marcel Daguerre,
Department of Philosophy
530-898-6419

Discussion of "Soft Journalism" Is First in Spring Ethics Series

The Center for Applied and Professional Ethics (CAPE) at California State University, Chico will hold the first in a spring series of three forums on ethics and the media on Tuesday, March 6. "That's Infotainment! Is Soft Journalism Undermining Journalistic Integrity?" is free and open to the public. It will be held in Holt 170 at 7:30 p.m.

Marcel Daguerre and Tony Graybosch, both members of the Department of Philosophy, and Morris Brown Jr., Department of Journalism, will constitute a panel discussing whether a news organization can serve both the market and the public well.

"Increased competition for viewers has caused news organizations to pursue stories about crime, celebrities and lifestyles at the expense of public affairs reporting on breaking events, major political figures and other stories that are in the public interest," said Marcel Daguerre, director of CAPE.

The panel will explore whether this has served to diminish journalistic credibility and whether a market-driven news industry enhances or diminishes the public's interest in the news. "As crime rates fell throughout the 1990s," Daguerre noted, "polls consistently revealed that people believed crime was getting worse. This coincided with an increase in crime stories in the media. How does the change in emphasis from hard to soft news stories affect public discourse and political decision-making?"

Two other forums during the spring will address protecting confidential sources and media monopolies. A fourth forum, on March 28, is not part of the journalism ethics theme, but features a noted economist on the free market. The public is invited to attend this series of free forums.

The Free Market: Liberated but Not Wild
Wednesday, March 28, 7:30 p.m., PAC 134
Fred Foldvary, Department of Economics, Santa Clara University

Does the free market recognize ethics? Fred Foldvary not only resoundingly answers "yes," but also contends that libertarianism is the most ethically sound of all the available moral theories. In his defense of libertarianism, Dr. Foldvary argues that the concept of voluntary human action implies an ethic that determines which acts are voluntary, and so within the market and therefore permitted, and which acts are involuntary, and so outside the market and therefore prohibited. But the same ethical rules that determine the meaning of the market also provide ethical guidance for governance and policy. Thus, he concludes, ethics both determine and require a free market.

Foldvary received his BA in economics from the University of California at Berkeley and his MA and PhD in economics from George Mason University. He has taught economics at the Latvian University of Agriculture, Virginia Tech, John F. Kennedy University, California State University at Hayward, the University of California at Berkeley Extension, and Santa Clara University. Foldvary is the author of "The Soul of Liberty," "Public Goods and Private Communities," and "Dictionary of Free Market Economics."

Protecting Confidential Sources: How Free Should a Free Press Be?
Wednesday, April 25, 7:30 p.m., PAC 134
Aaron Quinn, Department of Journalism
Tim Crews, Publisher, Sacramento Valley Mirror
David Little, Editor, Chico Enterprise Record

From Watergate and the Pentagon Papers to Iran-Contra and Abu Ghraib, journalists have used information from confidential sources to reveal information of great public import. Many have used such sources to expose unethical behavior by corporations, government and even professional athletes. As a consequence, some journalists are so committed to protecting their sources that they are willing to spend time in jail to do so. But some argue there should be strong limits on the use and protection of confidential sources.

Media Monopolies: Are You Getting All the News That's Fit to Print?
Wednesday, May 2, 7:30 p.m., PAC 134
Matt Blake, Department of Journalism
Ron Hirschbein, Department of Philosophy
Evan Tuchinsky, Editor, Chico News and Review

By some accounts, six companies now control 90 percent of America's news diet. Is this a problem? What are the effects of the concentration of media ownership? How can choices made at the top levels of media conglomerates affect the news we see and hear, and the ways we see and hear it? Does the existence of the Internet and the emergence of citizen journalists online mitigate the concerns about media consolidation among traditional news sources? Two years after the invasion of Iraq, 56 percent of Americans still believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the war. Sixty percent believed that Iraq had provided assistance to al-Qaida. Both claims had been long discredited. Did a lack of news media alternatives play a role in the persistence of both beliefs?

The Center for Applied and Professional Ethics (CAPE) promotes ethical reflection about issues of concern within and outside the University.

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