Holding the Media Accountable: Citizens, Ethics, and the Law - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0253213576 ISBN 13: 9780253213570

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2000

Synopsis

The past decade has seen an explosion of writing about media ethics and accountability. Most of the work has been focused on the normative side of the subject: ethical philosophies, ethics codes, suggestions for how journalists (and other media workers) can make justifiable decisions when faced with tough ethical questions.

Empirical research into media ethics and accountability, by contrast, is hard to find. Relatively little of the past decade’s work–and virtually none of the book-length treatments of the subject–focus on how media accountability works in practice. The gap in practical knowledge is somewhat puzzling, given that most faculty who teach media ethics and accountability work in academic departments that have professional training as part of their academic mission.

The underlying assumption of Holding the Media Accountable is that systems of norms such as media law and journalism ethics have meaning only in the context of the actual workings of mechanisms of accountability. No other volume has adopted such an approach.

About this title

About the Author

David Pritchard is a professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He has a Ph.D. in mass communications with a minor in law from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After receiving his doctorate in 1984, Pritchard joined the faculty of the School of Journalism at Indiana University, where he worked for nine years. Before moving into the academic world, he was a newspaper reporter in Wisconsin for seven years, working at The Freeman in Waukesha and The Capital Times in Madison.

Pritchard's teaching and research interests range from media law and ethics to political communication to Canadian journalism. He has published more than 30 scholarly articles and essays. He has been a Fulbright scholar and is a former head of the Law Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

About this edition

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0253213576
• ISBN 13: 9780253213570
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 203
• Editor: Edited By David Pritchard