NYU Journalism Handbook for Students
Ethics, Law and Good Practice
Carter Journalism Institute
Faculty of Arts and Science
New York University
20 Cooper Square
New York, NY 10003
By Prof. Adam L. Penenberg
REVISED 2020
Open Access License: The author of this work, in conjunction with the Carter Institute at New York University, has chosen to apply the Creative Commons Attribution License to this Ethics Handbook. While the author and the journalism institute retain ownership, we encourage others to reprint, amend and distribute this work for both commercial and noncommercial uses, as long as the original author and the journalism institute are credited. This broad license was developed to allow open and free access to original works of all types.
HUMAN SOURCES
A human “source” is roughly defined as a person who contributes information to a piece of reportage, whether or not it is ultimately published or aired in any venue—print, the internet, radio (audio podcasts included), video on a news report on television, online, in a documentary film, or across a future medium we haven’t thought of yet.
Journalists should seek to be fair and truthful in reporting what their sources tell them. Factual accuracy entails checking, and double-checking, facts and fairness involves working diligently to get myriad sides of a story by speaking to multiple sources with different and often varying points of view. When appropriate, journalists should make a judicious attempt to balance “establishment” experts—spokespeople for think tanks, foundations, and the like—with knowledgeable sources from outside “official” culture. Fairness also means adhering to the “no surprises” rule when writing critically of someone: affording the source the opportunity to answer allegations or criticisms before publishing the work.
In addition, journalists should avoid engaging in stereotypes and, whenever possible and appropriate, make sure that people from different economic backgrounds, ethnic groups, religions and cultures are represented in the reporting. The NYU journalism faculty urges students to treat sources with respect. Never threaten punitive action against a source for a perceived lack of cooperation.
QUOTES
The assumption is that every word in a quote is word for word what the interviewee said. Many news organizations—The New York Times, Associated Press—do not allow reporters to “clean up” quotations, even if the speaker employs tortured syntax. In that case, it is often best to remove the quote and paraphrase the response—or just quote the words or phrase that are the strongest. It is permissible to delete extraneous sounds like “uh” or “um.”
CARDINAL SINS
PLAGIARISM
Journalists earn their living with words, and plagiarism—using someone else’s words as if they were your own—is, simply stated, stealing. It can take many forms. At its worst, plagiarism can be copying and pasting an article off the internet and slapping your own byline at the top. Or subtler: Lifting a quote from a wire service story or taking credit for another person’s idea.
Because of the internet, plagiarism is easier today than ever before; it’s also easier to catch. To avoid charges of plagiarism, a writer must paraphrase another’s words and state the source(s); credit another person’s ideas and theories; and cite any facts that are not commonly known. Be sure to label your notes carefully when consulting material in a library or online. It is possible to inadvertently plagiarize a work this way; if you do, you suffer the consequences nevertheless.
How to recognize acceptable paraphrasing vs. plagiarism
Original passage: “In 1938, near the end of a decade of monumental turmoil, the year’s number-one newsmaker was not Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hitler, or Mussolini. It wasn’t Pope Pius XI, nor was it Lou Gehrig, Howard Hughes or Clark Gable. The subject of the most newspaper column inches in 1938 wasn’t even a person. It was an undersized, crooked-legged racehorse named Seabiscuit. (From Seabiscuit: An American Legend, by Laura Hillenbrand.)
The following is plagiarism:
“The biggest newsmaker in 1938—measured in newspaper column inches—wasn’t the president, nor was it Adolph Hitler or the pope. It wasn’t Babe Ruth or any Hollywood actor either. Why, it wasn’t even human. It was a racehorse named Seabiscuit.”
Why is this plagiarism? Because the writer has taken the spirit of Hillenbrand’s passage and simply reordered a few sentences and substituted words—including a relatively obscure fact about more newspaper column inches being dedicated to Seabiscuit than any human in 1938. What’s more, the writer didn’t credit Hillenbrand’s work.
Here is an acceptable paraphrase of this same passage:
“In 1938, the legendary racehorse Seabiscuit was so famous he accounted for more newspaper column inches than the president, pope and any Hollywood film star, according to Laura Hillenbrand in Seabiscuit: An American Legend.
Or simply, Seabiscuit was extremely popular in 1938. There’s no need to cite Hillenbrand because this is a commonly known fact that cannot be reasonably disputed.
Here is another example:
Original passage: “Jaithirth ‘Jerry’ Rao was one of the first people I met in Bangalore—and I hadn’t been with him for more than a few minutes at the Leela Palace hotel before he told me that he could handle my tax returns and any other accounting needs I had—from Bangalore. No thanks, I demurred. I already have an accountant in Chicago. Jerry just smiled. He was too polite to say it—that he may already be my accountant, or rather my accountant’s accountant, thanks to the explosion in the outsourcing of tax preparation. ‘This is happening as we speak,’ said Rao, a native of Mumbai, formerly Bombay, whose Indian firm, MphasiS, has a team of Indian accountants able to do outsourced accounting work from any state in America and the federal government. ‘We have tied up with several small and medium-sized CPA firms in America.’” (From The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas L. Friedman.)
The following is plagiarism:
“India has become a major player in outsourced accounting, and, for all you know, someone in Bangalore might very well be crunching your tax returns—on behalf of your accountant. ‘This is happening as we speak,’ said Jaithirth Rao, whose firm, MphasiS, has ‘tied up with several small and medium-sized CPA firms in America.’”
It is unacceptable because the way it is written, it appears the writer interviewed Rao and got that original quote, when it originated in Thomas Friedman’s book.
Another example:
Original passage: “The stock market crashed on October 29, 1929, a Tuesday, the most disastrous session on Wall Street to date in a month of turmoil.” (The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan.)
The following is not plagiarism: “The stock market crashed on Tuesday, October 29, 1929, following a month of economic jitters.”
It is acceptable because the day the stock market crashed, leading to the Great Depression, is a well-known fact.
Additional sticking points:
It can be tempting to lift highly technical passages (say, a description of BMW’s braking system or an in depth analysis of how Google’s search engine actually works). Don’t do it. Instead, find a way to describe these things in your own words. This also goes for company descriptions used in press releases. For example, HP describes itself as “a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally.” You might describe it as “a seller of a broad range of technology products and services, including PCs, printers, and IT infrastructure.”
The bottom-line rule of attribution is: When in doubt, cite the source of your information. You can’t go wrong then.
FABRICATION
Making up sources or information in an assignment is a serious ethical violation. In the real world, it could lead to immediate dismissal and the end of your career. In the late 1990s Stephen Glass created in part or whole cloth some two dozen stories he published in The New Republic, Harpers and Rolling Stone, which led to one of the biggest journalism scandals in history. Jayson Blair of The New York Times plagiarized and fabricated sources and material, which became a huge embarrassment to the Times, which is still recovering. Both are out of the profession.
DOCTORING PHOTOS OR VIDEO
It is not permissible to doctor or manipulate photos for the purpose of misleading, although is all right to crop pictures or enhance clarity if blurry. With video it is OK to edit footage but not all right to alter subjects’ appearance or likewise distort reality. Increasingly photo manipulation is being used as an explanatory technique: Putting George Bush’s head onto a wrestler’s body for satirical purposes, for example. This is acceptable only if there will be no confusion between the photo manipulation—satirical or otherwise—and reality.
FICTIONAL DEVICES
Names, dates and places should never be altered in any story, even to protect a source’s identity. If publishing those facts could lead to retribution against a source, or if compassion dictates omitting these facts from a story, they should simply be cut (with an explanation to the reader). Composites, which are characteristics and histories of multiple characters blended into one, should never be used.
ON THE RECORD, ON BACKGROUND, NOT FOR ATTRIBUTION, OFF THE RECORD , AND ON GUIDANCE
These are prearranged agreements between a reporter and a source, which govern how specific information can be used. These deals must be agreed to beforehand, never after. A source can’t say something then claim it was “off the record.” That’s too late. When dealing with individuals who are not experienced in talking with reporters, journalists should make sure ground rules and potential consequences are clear, and then perhaps offer leeway. Of course, if the information isn’t integral to the story, a reporter can agree not to use it. If you talk to five journalists, you’ll likely get five different definitions for these terms. That’s why it’s important that a reporter clarify the use of these terms with a source before making any agreements.
In general:
“On the record” means anything the source says can be reported, published, or aired. All conversations are assumed to be on the record unless the source expressly requests—and the reporter explicitly agrees—to go off the record beforehand. If the reporter agrees to change “on the record” to something else, the reporter should be sure to mark notes clearly so that it’s possible to see what’s on the record and what is not at a later date. Never rely on memory and always try to get back “on the record” as quickly as possible.
“On background” is a kind of limited license to print what the source gives you without using the source’s name. But most veteran reporters will not use “on background” information until they can verify it with other sources. People try to go “on background” when their information is very sensitive, which is to say, the information is likely to cause a stir. “On background” means the source’s name does not appear in the story. In effect it confers anonymity on your source, but allows you to work with the information the source has provided. Again, it’s best to consult your professor in these situations.
“Not for attribution” means that a reporter agrees not to identify a source by name. Identification is provided only by reference to the source’s job or position. That identification must be agreed upon by the reporter and the source, and is almost always given in a way that prevents readers from discovering the source’s specific identity. (There are rare exceptions—when dealing with diplomats and expressing a nation’s official views, for instance.) The reporter should make sure the attribution is accurate and should press the source to allow the attribution to be as specific as possible. For example, a reporter would want to attribute information to “a high-ranking official in the Justice Department,” rather than “a high-ranking law enforcement official,” if the source agrees beforehand.
“Off the record” restricts the reporter from using the information the source is about to deliver. The information is offered to explain or further a reporter’s understanding of a particular issue or event. (Various presidents have invited reporters to have dinner with the understanding that no information from this meeting can ever be published.) But if the reporter can confirm the information with another source who doesn’t insist on speaking off the record (whether that means the source agreed to talking on the record, on background, or not for attribution), the reporter can publish it.
The problem with the phrase “off the record” is that many people, reporters and the general public alike, misunderstand its precise meaning. These days many interviewees think “off the record” is largely synonymous with “on background” or “not for attribution.” There is so much murkiness about what “off the record” means that it is essential that the reporter and source agree on a definition before beginning an “off the record” portion of an interview. At the Carter Institute of Journalism, “off the record” means the information should not be used in the story unless the reporter can confirm it through another source. In general, it is best to avoid off the record conversations; another option might be to converse off the record and then try to convince the source to agree to waive the agreement. If a source declares part or all of an interview off the record after the fact, and this indicates a clear violation of predetermined ground rules, then best practice still requires the journalist to inform the source that they are using the information and give source the opportunity to comment while moving forward with publication.
“On guidance” is a source willing to provide information with no attribution or acknowledgement of existence, simply an individual willing to provide a reporter a road map she must independently follow. This is a safer term to use with sources than an anonymous source. The faculty urges students to avoid using unidentified sources whenever possible. In recent years, The New York Times, to name one media outlet, has come under fire for reporting stories largely based on anonymous government sources promulgating a particular point of view, and this practice undermined the Times’ goal of covering news impartially—”without fear or favor,” in the words of its patriarch, Adolph Ochs. For instance, the paper’s coverage of Los Alamos researcher Wen Ho Lee, who Clinton Administration officials pegged as a spy by using cover of anonymity to leak their suspicions to Times reporters, and its coverage of Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction leading up to the Iraq War, seriously tainted the paper’s reputation. Recently, there has been a rise in the use of anonymous sourcing at CNN, Politico, and Business Insider, among other news outlets, which has frequently resulted in errors or other forms of blowback. One recent example would be Buzzfeed’s use of anonymous sourcing in a story that claimed Michael Cohen was instructed by Trump to lie to Robert Mueller, which proved embarrassing to Buzzfeed and served to bolster the Trump administration’s claims that the liberal media is biased often wrong.
There are moments, however, when the only way to get a story is to offer anonymity to a source; such offers should be a last resort after repeated attempts to go on the record have failed and the student has received permission from their instructor. Some notable examples: a source admits committing a crime, and publishing their name could land them in prison; a source begs anonymity because public exposure could embarrass the source or jeopardize the source’s job; an illegal immigrant is afraid to speak out for fear of being deported. In these cases, the student should consult with their professor. If an anonymous source must be used, the student should attempt to offer as much detail as possible about who the source was and explain the reason anonymity was given. For instance, identify a source as “a police detective close to the investigation who requested anonymity because their superiors had ordered them not to speak publicly on the matter.”
Except in rare instances, a reporter should not publish an anonymous quote or statement from a source that is critical of another person. Generally speaking, if someone is unwilling to put their name to a critical statement about another person, the reporter shouldn’t use it. In all cases where a source requests anonymity, the reporter must get the source’s name and address and contact numbers and that information must be made available to the professor, who, in effect, serves as the student’s editor.
IN-PERSON, PHONE, EMAIL, TEXT AND SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECT MESSAGE INTERVIEWS
It is best to speak to sources in person. In-person interviews allow for colorful, descriptive reporting. Sources also tend to be much more relaxed—and perhaps more truthful—when interviewed in person. It’s also much easier for a reporter to gauge the credibility of a source when meeting face to face. But an in-person interview is not always practicable, and in those cases the telephone is the next best mode of communication. Be sure to check the veracity of a source’s identity by calling through corporate or government switchboards, and be suspicious if a source will only call you and will not provide either a phone number or an affiliation.
Email interviews can have their place. In certain circles—technology or in the world of online forums, for instance—many sources insist on email interviews so they have a written record of what is discussed. In addition, email interviews can serve as an effective way to further clarify information from a prior in-person or phone interview, especially if data and highly technical information is being conveyed. But email interviews can create problems, too. How does a reporter know the person replying is who they say they are? All too often, company publicists answer email questions on behalf of their bosses or clients. Email answers often tend to be carefully scripted and thus not truly representative of what the source truly thinks. Spontaneous answers in conversation are often more truthful. Follow-up questions—usually the most productive questions in a probing interview—are also very difficult and time-consuming to ask via email. Likewise, instant message interviews should not be used to replace in-person or telephone interviews, but at times can be useful in clarifying responses after an interview.
NYU Journalism faculty strongly urge student reporters to meet sources in person whenever possible. It makes for richer, better stories; the writer can describe physical settings—what a source’s office looks like, for example.
PERSON-ON-THE-STREET INTERVIEWS
When interviewing people on the street—tourists, passersby, voters exiting a polling precinct—be sure to get proper contact information (telephone number is best; email less so) in the event an editor needs to confirm quotes or facts, check a source’s identity, or simply wants the reporter to ask follow up questions. Often the purpose of on-the-street interviews is to try to capture the diversity of opinion in a particular population, not just to get a few lively quotes to brighten a story. In this case, a reporter should make an effort to interview enough people so that they can feel reasonably confident the story holds a fair cross-section of opinion. Better still, a reporter should back up their interviews with statistically legitimate polling data if available. And reporters should always be honest with their readers about the number of sources interviewed. Don’t leave readers with the impression that your story accurately reflects campus opinion if you have only interviewed half-a-dozen people. Instead, tell readers how many people you interviewed, and attempt to quantify their views.
IMMERSION
Immersion involves spending long periods of time with sources and sometimes in intimate settings–at home, with children, in hospitals or in times of crisis, to name several–as is often referred to as “fly on the wall.” As such, it involves a series of ethical considerations that are best negotiated explicitly with sources. As with every other form of journalism, we do not share written work with our sources on the page. We do not pay our sources, nor do we manipulate stories by creating scenarios or situations that we think will serve our work. By definition, our presence changes the course of events, however, and there are times when you as a journalist will face making tough ethical calls which may involve driving people places (especially to medical care), sleeping in their homes or eating meals with them. On a case by case basis, there will be times when contributing to the cost of your presence will be welcome and appropriate, but otherwise, the ethical principles related to immersion, despite the close and sustained contact, are consistent will all other forms of journalistic professionalism.
OBLIGATIONS TO SOURCES
It is imperative that journalists honor their agreements with sources; some have taken great risks in providing information. If you agree to a source’s request for anonymity be sure you don’t inadvertently provide information in your story that could peg them as the source. Such deals should never be undertaken lightly. Reporters must carefully consider whether to guarantee anonymity to a source, especially involving a matter that could eventually go to court. Refusing to name a source in a legal proceeding could land a reporter in jail. (The legal ramifications raised by the need to protect sources is discussed in the section on law, below.)
SECURITY
In the course of your reporting, it is critical that you protect your sources – especially if those sources are confidential. This is a principle that often comes under threat from governments, dictatorships, corporations or criminal actors.
People who want to get the information from a journalist or a source can access information via subpoena or legal warrant, interception of data via spy agencies, cyber attacks, surveillance of company-owned computers or phones and many other low-tech approaches. These threats vary between stories.
There is no single tool that will protect a reporter or source from all the threats they may face, and there’s no one single that will make information totally secure. Many measures taken to achieve security mean causing inconvenience in other parts of your life or your source’s life. You should be honest with your source that while you will do the best you can to protect them, there is no way to completely guarantee their safety or anonymity.
The following are some ways one can achieve digital security:
- Two-factor authentication: Always use this for email and social networks. Don’t reuse passwords. Don’t ignore notifications – keep your software up-to-date.
- Encryption: Encryption scrambles data from online traffic so it cannot be easily by those who want to intercept the data and information. Most internet traffic is protected with encryption (you can tell when you see the lock next to the web address in your browser). An extra-secure level of encryption when you’re contacting a source via direct message is end-to-end encryption. This ensures that only the sender and the recipient of the message can read it – while the app that you’re using cannot. End-to-end encrypted messaging apps include WhatsApp and Signal.
- Being aware of logging: A log is the digital record of old conversations or emails. Anything available to you via logging (e.g. old texts or emails) could be available to others by hacking, interception or legal avenues. It is important to be aware of what you keep logged and how often you delete your records. If you’re part of a company, it’s good to check your organization’s policies about this as well. It’s also important to be aware by other sites used by you or your source (e.g. Google doesn’t delete emails until nine weeks after you hit delete).
- Being aware of metadata: Metadata doesn’t expose the content of communications between you and a source, but it will expose the fact that you’re in communication with that source. Methods of working around this include: reaching out to other people who may also have your source’s information so that your source is hidden in a crowd; using throwaway phone or emails or communicating offline.
- VPN: VPNs send Internet data to and from your computer through a server elsewhere on the Internet, which means that you’ll appear to be accessing the internet from your VPN server, which can be based anywhere in the world – not your actual location. A VPN will secure all your communications from local interception. VPNs are often used to circumvent Internet restrictions or government surveillance.
- Tor: Tor protects network traffic by encrypting and shuffling the data through several servers before entering the internet. Like VPNs, Tor also helps you avoid tracking or surveillance.
- Airgapping: For stories dealing with sophisticated actors (e.g. spy agencies, Russia, China) there is the chance that any computer that has been connected to the internet could be compromised by a hacking attack. To counter this, one can purchase an airgapped computer – one that has never been connected to the internet, that may have its network capabilities disabled. You can view documents safely on an airgapped computer because someone trying to access this information would need physical access to the computer to get at it.
Even after you publish a story, it is still vital for you to protect the identity of your source and look out for threats that could lead to the disclosure of your source’s identity. Factors that could lead to source identification include:
- Misuse and misunderstanding of technology
- Human nature
- Legal errors
- Leaked and reused passwords
- Malware, social engineering or large-scale cyber attacks
- Identifying the source from published documents
- Other people who knew the source had the information
Before you publish or engage with a source, it’s important to threat model and analyze the risks of using a source – what they have done, how capable are they to protect themselves and how likely they are to face retaliation. It’s important to consider the following questions:
- Who would be interested in finding the source or stopping the publication of a story?
- How sophisticated are those people and what materials do they have at their disposal to stop the publication of a story?
- How sophisticated is the source? Will they be able to protect themselves?
- How much danger is the source in?
Through considering these questions, you should be able to communicate with your source to come up with the best plan to protect them and effectively deliver their information to the public.
EMBARGOES
Under the terms of a media embargo, companies, government agencies, and scientific journals, among other organizations, provide advance access to material that they consider newsworthy to journalists who agree not to publish anything about that material until a set date.
Proponents of embargoes say that they level the playing field, and allow reporters time to develop fuller stories, rather than rushing to beat the competition. Some reporters like them because they can have at least some control over their schedules.
However, embargoes have become overused in some fields, and often seem designed to create buzz around an event that would not seem newsworthy were it not for journalists’ addiction to news pegs. That is particularly true in science and medical journalism, in which prominent weekly journals attempt to use their publishing schedules to dictate what’s “news,” even though research findings do not happen on a weekly schedule.
It would be good for the unfettered flow of information if journalists eschewed embargoes. Unfortunately, in some fields, reporting on breaking news has become difficult without agreeing to them.
If you decide to agree to embargoes, it is important to keep in mind that they are agreements, and can’t be imposed unilaterally. A press officer can’t simply send material and call it embargoed; you would be in your rights to report on that immediately.
It is also best not to agree to any conditions on embargoes other than publication time. Recently, some government agencies and companies have used “close-hold” embargoes that require reporters not to discuss the embargoed material with any sources before the embargo lifts. That turns journalists who want to publish when the embargo lifts into stenographers.
Whenever agreeing to an embargo, it is good to think about who benefits and how. Even seemingly benign embargo agreements can be used by corporate, government, or other powerful interests to influence press coverage.
SEXUAL (AND NON-SEXUAL) HARASSMENT AND ABUSE
In the course of your work, you may get harassed or abused by colleagues, sources, superiors or others both in the newsroom and far afield.. Harassment or abuse is often sexual – which includes unwelcome attention or sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and/or offensive remarks about a person’s gender. Harassment can come from sources, coworkers or people adjacent to your work.
It’s important to cover strategies to preemptively avoid harassment and abuse and how to deal with it once it has happened, but the responsibility always lies with the person perpetuating the harassment or abuse. It is never your fault if you are being harassed or abused. Don’t harass or abuse other people. If you are in a position where you witness harassment or abuse happening to someone else and you feel like you can safely speak up about the problem, you need to do so – even if it is uncomfortable for you. This can be accomplished by talking with the perpetrator directly, talking to someone who has the power to make the perpetrator stop their behavior, or even providing a temporary distraction to end the perpetrator’s behavior in that specific moment.
Some strategies to mitigate the risk of harassment include: meeting with sources in public places during times of day which fall inside professional boundaries (e.g. not meeting them at midnight for drinks.) Don’t meet alone or in remote locations with people who you aren’t familiar with – or if you have to, turn on a location-tracking app, alert your friends/colleagues, clearly keep in touch with other people and make sure the person you’re meeting with knows that people would be concerned and proactive if you vanished off the grid. Choose clothing that befits the occasion. Set boundaries – clarify that your meeting with a person is strictly professional and if they cross the line, be immediately clear that it is unacceptable behavior. Tap into the whisper network, if you can locate one, to find out which sources/colleagues/etc are predatory.
If you are being harassed by a colleague or source, document the instances of harassment and share them with people so there is a record of what has been happening. The Dart Center suggests some strategies for dealing with harassment, including: directly telling them to stop, indirectly telling them to stop, ignoring the behavior, using humor and cutting an interview short.
If you have been harassed by someone, some options you could pursue are: sending them an email telling them that you’d like to keep them as a source, but only if they stop their behavior. (This also creates a paper trail). You could use an intermediary to approach them and tell them to stop. You could drop the source or report them to the company they work for (if they are affiliated with one). This all comes down to what you are comfortable with.
While harassment and abuse are wrong in every context, the different places in which you report may have different cultural standards for this type of behavior. This applies internationally, but these cultural differences also occur on a national level and are important to be aware of.
Some of these options may seem incredibly limiting – and they are, especially for women journalists, who often downplay harassment or abuse they receive because it would further limit their access to the important stories they’re reporting. Sometimes, to get the story, you may have to meet up with a source for drinks at midnight or in a remote location or you may not be wearing a full professional suit. Sometimes, you may decide that pursuing the story is more important than harassment you may be receiving. At the end of the day, you know your story and yourself better than your editors, and you need to make the call with them on whether something is safe for you or not. But remember, your safety is more important than any story.
WORKING INTERNATIONALLY
Often the research required to be able to carry out reporting in an international location can exceed that needed to actually report the story. This is a key point to remember and take seriously throughout the entire process.
LAWS, VISAS, PERMITS, PASSPORTS
First, it is essential to understand that laws that apply to journalistic activities within the United States do not extend outside its borders. Every country has its own rules and these must be understood to avoid difficult situations that might include arrest, detention or deportation. Generally, it can be observed that many countries have more restrictive laws than the US. In many nations, the mere act of reporting is something that is tightly controlled and cannot be conducted without permission from the government. While some cases are extreme, for example North Korea, where reporting is virtually impossible, many other countries including giants like China, Russia, Indonesia and India require specific journalist visas or reporting permits for foreign nationals. Many of the applications involve explaining what your story is about, so this can be a delicate process for investigative pieces. Some countries, like Vietnam, may require foreign journalists be accompanied by state appointed “minders”. Video and photography restrictions may exist in places where reporting alone might not be controlled (Morocco, Kenya). Prior research is essential in these matters to assure a successful and safe trip.
Reporters should be vigilant in keeping their passports up to date as many countries will not permit entry to anyone with a passport that expires within 6 months, something that can thwart an international assignment before it begins. Some entry stamps can cause issues when trying to enter other countries. For example, an Israel stamp will make it impossible to enter Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Lebanon, Sudan and others. An eagle-eyed passport control officer might even deny entry to a traveller with a Jordanian entry stamp from the land crossing between Israel and Jordan. Non US citizens who benefit from the ESTA visa waiver program (many European and Northeast Asian citizens) will need an additional special waiver to enter the US if they have visited Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria or Yemen. For several countries, proof of a Yellow Fever vaccination is required for entry – the “yellow card” is handed over together with the passport.
RISKS
Red tape aside, reporting outside the United States can be a dangerous venture. According to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists, in 2018 alone, 54 journalists were murdered because of their occupation. Many of these cases involve covering conflict, but a survey of the past decade reveals a few hotspots even in non war-zones: 33 cases in Mexico, 25 in Brazil, 46 in the Philippines, 24 in India, 9 in Russia. The great majority of those killed were reporters working in their home nations, as opposed to foreigners, but international journalists are sometimes targeted and attacked as well.
Another rare but significant risk is that of kidnapping, sometimes at the hands of terror groups, sometimes rebel factions, and sometimes criminal gangs (often a combination of these). For assignments where this might be a concern, reporters should explore kidnapping and ransom (“K&R”) insurance, which can pay to free a covered person, depending on the level of the policy, and will usually provide high level intelligence, advice and negotiation services. Staff reporters should find out if their employer provides coverage and have all contact details handy and with their supervisor and family members. The costs of these policies can sometimes exceed the compensation of a foreign reporting assignment and therefore they are less often used by freelancers, though some commissioning media organizations do extend coverage to freelancers on assignment for them. Reporters from the US and UK (and possibly others) should be aware that their governments may offer only limited logistical support in cases of kidnap and will never make ransom payments, even in high profile cases.
Even statistically more dangerous for border-crossing reporters are hazards stemming from the lack of infrastructure in many places around the world. Road accidents represent a significant risk everywhere, but fatality rates are 2-3 times higher in Liberia, Thailand or the Dominican Republic than in the US (which is itself higher than Canada, Mexico and many European nations). Because of this, many foreign reporters employ local drivers who are more accustomed to road and traffic conditions. Many reporters working abroad also adopt a policy of avoiding all road travel after dark.
Some international destinations may expose reporters to diseases not present at home, and the lack of well-staffed and -supplied medical facilities in many locations can complicate treatment for these or in cases of other illness or injury. First, location-specific medical advice should be sought before each assignment. Vaccinations and/or prophylaxis are available for some of these risks: for example malaria, typhoid and meningococcal meningitis. Reporters should always be sure to carry an adequate supply of any required medicines (which may not be obtainable locally) as well as insect repellant, sunscreen, altitude pills or other location-specific needs. Very few US health insurance providers provide coverage outside of the US and so specific travel medical policies, including adequate medical evacuation coverage for many destinations, should be a prerequisite.
Because of these hazards, it is always a good idea to develop a system to keep in regular contact with home base, so that in the event help is needed it is not needlessly delayed. Research should be carried out to see if a reporter’s mobile phone provider offers adequate coverage in the destination country. If not, or if the cost is prohibitive, reporters should ensure their mobile device is unlocked and they should acquire a local SIM card on arrival. For some assignments, reporters should consider bringing a satellite phone or a GPS transponder, which can be used to send out location information when other communications are offline or unavailable (although first make sure these devices are legal to import to the destination country. India, for example, strictly forbids satellite phones.). At a minimum, regularly scheduled “check ins” via phone, message or email should be arranged with a supervisor or even family member. These points of contacts should be furnished with emergency contact details for medical services, local embassies and crisis responders.
NYU RISK RESOURCES
New York University has advanced and valuable resources available to mitigate some of these risks for enrolled students. International safety and security is handled by the Department of Public Safety’s Global Security Operations Center, or GSOC. The Center has advanced intelligence and crisis response capabilities and should be a first call should a student reporter find themselves in trouble while abroad on a university-related assignment. Its analysts are available for pre-trip consults and specific country risk assessments. They also have a limited number of first aid kits and satellite communications devices to lend out.
NYU’s Student Health Center maintains a travel health clinic which is available, by appointment, to do country specific health assessments and provide vaccinations and prescriptions for travel medications.
“FIXERS”
Many journalists working outside of their home countries, whether on a short term assignment or on a more permanent basis, employ the services of local reporters, known as “fixers”. A journalism fixer is someone who, first and foremost, arranges and schedules access and interviews and navigates the bureaucracy that’s often a part of that. They may also work as translators when reporting is not conducted in a language the foreign reporter speaks well. Fixers can also be of tremendous benefit in assisting with logistics, from the visa and permit application process to finding hotels and drivers. Indeed, the fixer-foreign reporter relationship is the cornerstone of international reporting and establishing this association is often one of the first steps in undertaking foreign reporting. Despite a recent proliferation of internet databases and Facebook groups, fixers are still usually referred by word of mouth by other reporters who have worked in a location.
Fixers are a reporter’s first-line local expert and should be accorded respect for their understanding of local dynamics. But also be aware that sometimes fixers can bring with them local biases (or more often, the suspicion of bias). This can be especially acute in reporting on conflict where multiple sides need be explored but where a fixer has an identity tied to one side of the divide. Often the fixer is perfectly capable of remaining professional and neutral but will be rejected by a source because of fears of bias, or their presence will color the reporter’s interaction with the source. Therefore there are occasions where it might be necessary to employ more than one fixer for an assignment. And, of course, foreign reporters should not make assumptions that a fixer will be safe in these situations simply because they are accompanying a neutral outsider.
Foreign reporters working in politically sensitive environments always need to be aware of and protect the safety and security of their fixers, as well as their sources. Retribution for a story that is considered by a party as negative to their position can be seen as easier to carry out against the fixer than the foreign journalist, who may appear to have greater protection. The foreign reporter may be safe outside the country when a sensitive investigative report is published but those who helped them compile the report are often not. The reporter must always make sure the fixer understands the nature of the reporting they are engaging in and what the outcome might be.
ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Reporters must be especially careful with electronic correspondence and should explore whether use of advanced security and encryption is required to protect themselves, their fixers and their sources. Every country today uses some degree of electronic surveillance. Reporters should be especially cautious in their use of public (and even private) social media in telegraphing their stories, or even their movements, to watchful governments. Politically (or religiously, or ethnically) charged statements on social media should always be avoided for reporters, but the hazards of this can be significantly elevated when dealing with adversarial regimes and may even be grounds for arrest in some places.
WORKING WITH INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
In reporting on natural disaster, crisis, conflict and human rights, especially in remote regions, the foreign reporter will often find themselves relying on help from multinational organizations like the United Nations (most often through its agencies UNICEF, UNHCR, IOM, WFP) or on non-governmental aid groups like the International Rescue Committee or Oxfam. While staying mindful of the principles discussed in this manual’s Conflicts of Interest section, reporters should understand that accepting logistics assistance from these organizations in extreme circumstances is a generally accepted practice. Often the only way to reach a story, especially in conflict areas, is to get a seat on a World Food Program (UN) flight or with the European Union’s humanitarian air service, ECHO. Sometimes the only place to stay at a remote feeding station where aid officials are responding to famine is inside a UN compound. Where possible, reporters should attempt to compensate organizations for these benefits, but often there is simply no mechanism for payment. Furthermore, most international organizations understand that enabling press coverage is indeed part of their mission and support is given without a quid pro quo expectation.
Where cooperation with these organizations can be more tricky is when reporters use them for introductions to interview subjects for stories. For example, a reporter might be introduced to an aid recipient by the group that provides that aid. This is again a common practice and may, in fact, foster a more healthy journalistic interaction in cases where the source is a victim of trauma (see below). At the same time the reporter should take extra care to assure that the source is properly representative of the situation on the ground, and not someone who only fulfills the narrative of the organization making the introduction, no matter how well intentioned that group is.
WORKING WITH SENSITIVE POPULATIONS
By no means exclusive to international reporting, nor a concern with all foreign reporting, but working with sensitive and traumatized populations requires extra care for both the reporter and their sources. Reporters should be especially careful not to re-traumatize victims, and should always work through trusted interlocutors when interviewing or otherwise covering victims of any kind of trauma. It is vital that the source understands the nature of the interaction, your coverage and what the possible outcome of the story might be. Reporters must also be aware of the risks of absorbing second hand trauma from what they are about to hear.
PAYING SOURCES (AGAIN)
One last complicating factor that presents itself in international coverage is the question of compensation for participation. As stated earlier, and as a cornerstone of American press ethics, it is not acceptable to pay for interviews. However, in other reporting cultures, notably Japan and the UK, payment for interviews is normal and is therefore sometimes expected in places where reporters from these nations have worked. While the origin of this dynamic is understandable, it is never an excuse to violate this core principle.
TAPING CONVERSATIONS
It is not always feasible to record conversations, and the transcribing process afterward can be quite time consuming. On the other hand, there are obvious benefits to recording interviews, especially important ones: namely an assurance of accuracy and the creation of a verifiable record. Although the laws of certain states allow professional reporters to tape conversations without getting the permission of the interviewee beforehand, some states don’t. The Carter Institute of Journalism at NYU suggests that students first ask permission before taping any conversation to head off any potential legal entanglements. Begin the taping by stating the date, time and asking the person to spell their name, which then offers proof the subject agreed to the taping.
In very rare instances, secret taping may be warranted. Reporters at the Lexington Herald-Leader won a Pulitzer in 1986 for their series, “Playing Above the Rules,” in which they secretly taped interviews with University of Kentucky basketball players, who told them a group of fans had violated NCAA rules by giving players cash and gifts. The reporters and editors were worried that sources would recant their stories under pressure, opening up the publication to potential litigation. If you believe secret taping is required to get the story, you must first seek your professor’s permission.
What follows is more detail on this topic:
I.) Taping (face to face): There are 37 states, plus the District of Columbia, that permit surreptitious recording of interviews. These are called one-party consent states, since only one party to the conversation—the reporter, for example—need give consent. (It is not, of course, legal to tape a conversation to which you are not a participant—by planting a bug or tapping a phone, for example.) On the other hand, 12 states have criminal statutes that prohibit recording without the consent of all parties to the conversation: California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington (Vermont has no law). Note that these are criminal statutes, the violation of which can bring a jail sentence, and these laws have been interpreted in various ways by the courts of each state.
II.) Taping over telephone: The same twelve states require consent of all parties in order to record a telephone conversation. Federal law permits the recording of phone conversations if one party consents and has been expanded to include wireless and cellular calls. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations conflict with federal statutory law—the FCC requires, for calls crossing state lines, that all parties be notified of the recording at the beginning of the call.
III.) Use of cameras without consent: Thirteen states forbid unauthorized use of cameras in private places: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, South Dakota, and Utah.
REPORTING/VIDEOTAPING POST 9/11
Although there is no law against videotaping a subway platform or police cars on patrol that doesn’t mean you won’t get hassled by law enforcement officials, who, after Sept. 11, have a heightened concern about terrorism. The City has even posted signs prohibiting photography on its bridges and tunnels. Although reporters may see a story in testing for security vulnerabilities, this can be particularly risky. The research would probably require a certain amount of subterfuge and may well involve a violation of criminal law. You can expect to be prosecuted, for example, if you test airport security by trying to smuggle a box cutter onboard a passenger jet. In addition, there are laws on the books that prohibit videotaping military installations and nuclear power plants.
