Covering crime means two things: 1) Dead people and 2) grieving families. The National Victim Center endorses these guidelines for journalists:

Advise victims that they can be interviewed “on the record’ or “off the record,” and that they don’t have to be interviewed at all.
Avoid photographing crime scene details such as remains or removal of bodies.
Don’t […]

Categories: Metro State online media

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) have made your job as a reporter more difficult. Concerns for privacy have gained momentum due to fears of terrorism and increasing instances of indentity theft. We’ll discuss in class several scenarios where ethics, victims’ rights and strict interpretation […]

Categories: Metro State online media

Covering a community beat means paying attention to the offbeat news sources such as community bulletin boards, church bulletins and nonprofit web pages. Community organizations and neighborhood bloggers may have an RSS feed as part of their Web site. Originally an acronym for “Rich Site Summary,” the term RSS is defined today as “Really Simple […]

Categories: CU Digital Newsroom