Benny Johnson, a reporter with the Independent Journalism Review, was accused of plagiarism by fellow staffers in 2015, just one year after being fired from Buzzfeed for 41 instances of plagiarism, Poynter reported. Additionally, Poynter reported, “Johnson, Viral Editor Kyle Becker and Content Editor Becca Lower were all suspended from IJR after the site published a story last week that implied Barack Obama’s recent trip to Hawaii had something to do with a federal judge’s decision to block President Trump’s immigration order, according to Business Insider.”
Reporter Farai Chideya discussed the importance of having a diverse newsroom in an article published by the Columbia Journalism Review.
Media ethicist Stephen J.A. Ward suggested a new form of objectivity in journalism in an article published by MediaShift.
An article from Digiday discussed why some publications are personalizing content to match readers’ consumption habits, while others criticized this practice, saying “too much personalization or content matching can harm” journalism’s “public good mission to confront people with fact-based reporting regardless of how they feel about it.”
Author Kevin Deutsch’s stories are being questioned after sources cannot be located by other publications, Poynter reported.
An article published by the Columbia Journalism Review discussed what the author calls “bright spots—the reasons we should feel encouraged to keep toiling” in reference to issues involving Freedom of Information.