Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.

Reuters recently hosted a panel at our New York headquarters called “Audience and the Media: A Shaky Marriage.” I was on the panel with a distinguished group: Lisa Shepard, ombudsman of National Public Radio; Andrew Alexander, ombudsman of The Washington Post; and Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor of The Associated Press. Jack Shafer, editor-at-large of Slate, was the moderator.

The key question we explored was: “How can mainstream news organizations retain (or regain) their audiences’ trust in a skeptical world where almost anyone with an Internet connection can be a publisher?” It will come as no surprise that we did not answer the question definitively in the 75 minutes we were on stage. However, a number of questions–some quite troubling–were raised. Rather than attempt to summarize all the points raised and positions taken by the panelists and the audience, I’ll explore some of the questions raised in my mind.

–Why do people mistrust the media and whose fault is it?

Much of the fault lies with the mainstream media. For far too many years, news organizations had an arrogant, one-way relationship with our audiences. We gathered news, packaged it in ways we thought made sense and shoveled it out to our audiences. If you liked what we delivered, fine. If not, well, you could always write a letter to the editor of the newspaper where you saw the story. Now I think the balance is much better. Feedback is instantaneous, transparency is the norm and our readers can also be publishers on their own.

On the other hand, much of the distrust is not our fault. Discourse–certainly in the United States– has become far more polarized and news consumers are seeking out news sources that support their own politics or world view. That makes it especially difficult for those of us who pride ourselves on being independent and free of bias. Readers sometimes see bias when a news report doesn’t support their particular world view.

Let’s remember that the idea of an unbiased and independent press is relatively new. Many news consumers around the world choose a news outlet that reflects their world view. I worry that a large cohort of news consumers now expect that–and prefer it.

–Can journalists rise above their political beliefs to provide unbiased coverage?

I believe they can, they do and they must. That is the essence of being a professional reporter.

However, we don’t do ourselves any favors when we use social media like Facebook and Twitter to express opinions on politics or policy issues, then find that we have to cover the issues we’re sounding off about. As we advise our journalists at Reuters, social media have made our public and private personae virtually indistinguishable–and we have to expect that anything we say in social media is public information. Journalists shouldn’t engage in public activity–either online or offline–that could call into question their ability to report a story fairly.

That said, I do believe that journalists can have strong political, religious and social views and still cover their beats with independence and freedom from bias. Again, that’s the essence of professionalism. The flip side is that when bias is evident, we have to expect that our audience will be vocal in pointing it out.

–Dealing with audience comments.

As someone who writes a column/blog, I have to confess that reading the comments that come in can be wearying. There are always those who use the comments section–no matter what the topic–as a proxy for delivering a political message.

Nowhere is this more evident than when I write about the Middle East. There’s a substantial number of people who will never, ever believe that Reuters journalists can set aside personal views and report fairly and objectively from, say, Gaza.

I worry that sometimes comments amount not to a discussion, but, as Lisa Shepard put it, “shouting at the television set.”

I think we’re better off having comments than not, but they are a challenge to monitor and moderate. Here are some questions to think about–and comment on! (1) Should comment authors be required to sign their real name and provide contact information that would be used to confirm their identity, but not be published? (2) Would it be better to continue to allow anonymity, but put all comments one click away from the original material; that is, provide a link that would take you to a separate comments page? (3) SHOULD ENTRIES IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS BE BANNED?

–What ever happened to the golden age of journalism?

Let me declare my true colors here: I’m a card-carrying optimist.

I’m suspicious of this nostalgia for a so-called golden age of journalism. Show me when it was. Journalists today are better educated than ever before. We have research and newsgathering tools that are far faster and more powerful. We can deliver news faster and more efficiently to readers and viewers than ever before.

In the supposed good old days–before the Internet, before the democratization of publishing–it was easier and more common to hide mistakes, to suppress stories, to be pressured by the powerful. The new transparency makes it much harder to control the flow of news in the way that presidents, prime ministers and other powerful institutions could do in earlier times.

Sure, the democratization of publishing has resulted in a cacophony of sources, with varying degrees of credibility. But that’s where we in the mainstream media have a responsibility to engage in the fray and promote the journalistic values we live by. We must continue to shed the arrogance and share the standards and values that give us credibility.

This can be the golden age.

–

Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.

It was 20 years ago that the Berlin Wall, the most iconic symbol of the Cold War, fell, on Nov. 9, 1989.

In recent days, there have been a number of commemorations of the event and news organizations around the world have taken note of what was one of the most important stories of the latter half of the 20th century.

I had the privilege of attending and speaking at one Berlin event organized by Google and Reporters Without Borders. The event, Breaking Borders, took the anniversary as an opportunity to explore how the Internet is playing a role in advancing participatory democracy around the globe. Twenty years earlier, television and satellite technology helped play a role in the fall of the Wall, by connecting people and empowering them with information.

Among those appearing at the event, either as speakers or panelists, were Thorbjørn Jagland, secretary-general of the Council of Europe; Jean-François Julliard, secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders; Rachel Whetstone, Google’s vice president for public policy and communications; Andrew Puddephatt, director of Global Partners & Associates; Rita Sussmuth, former president of the German federal parliament; and Sami Ben Gharbia, advocacy director for Global Voices.

The session was recorded and the presentation is on YouTube.

A common theme at the conference was that, yes, the Internet provides a vastly more powerful way to obtain and share information, giving voice to many who had been muzzled. However, there was also a consensus that the Internet also presents myriad challenges and potential barriers.

How, for example, does one make one’s message heard over the cacophony of voices on the Internet and, as I explored in my remarks to the conference, what should be the role of the mainstream media? Just as Internet technology can give voice to the voiceless, so can it be used by authorities to suppress speech.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

It is an honor to speak to you today and to share a stage with such a distinguished group.

Twenty years ago, I sat with my family in our house in Palo Alto, California, as we watched live television coverage from Berlin. We watched as only a few hundred meters from here thousands of Berliners converged on the Wall, singing, dancing, embracing and, yes, taking sledgehammers to perhaps the most iconic symbol of the Cold War.

Six weeks later, on Christmas Day, we watched again as the American conductor Leonard Bernstein conducted an international orchestra– again, only a few hundred meters from here– in a soul-stirring performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony to celebrate the fall of the Wall.

For the occasion, the maestro took some artistic liberty with the text of Schiller’s poem, “Ode to Joy.” He changed one word. Instead of singing of “Freude” – Joy– the assembled choirs and soloists would sing of “freiheit” –Freedom.

As my wife and children and I watched—along with millions of others from California to Japan—we joined with the Berliners in the audience and on the square outside the Schauspielhaus in weeping with joy. Just as the media had played a role in helping to bring down the Wall—by connecting people and empowering them with information—so now was it connecting the joy of Berliners to the world.

It was particularly inspiring to see among the performers the teenage girls in the Dresden Philharmonic Kinderchor, girls who had grown up in the German Democratic Republic and who now, practically overnight, found themselves playing an important role in a ceremony marking a new era.

Now—20 years later—they and their children have access to information and communication technology that has brought about a new freedom, rendering geographical borders more meaningless and making it more possible to get around government efforts at censorship and the suppression of the free flow of information.

I believe Schiller, who in his poem yearned for the unity of humankind, would like much of the Internet revolution, particularly the democratization of information. However, such a lover of beauty and reason might look askance at much of the content on the Internet.

We have moved into a time when anyone with an idea and an Internet connection can be a publisher, so there has been an explosion of information available to everyone. This explosion has given voice to many who had been muzzled. But it has also resulted in a cacophony of sources—many trustworthy, many not; many beautifully voiced, many not.

We have seen how such wide access to publishing tools and information has been a force for liberation, but we have also seen how information can be manipulated and how easily disinformation can dominate the debate.

We’ve seen how the disenfranchised can use social media and other information technology to organize and get out their message, but we’ve also seen how the authorities can use the same tools to subvert these “Twitter revolutions”.

Social media were justly lauded for their role in breaking through government controls after Iran’s elections in June. When foreign journalists were forced to stay in their offices or leave the country, social media helped fill the information vacuum. Major news organizations, including my own, became dependent on social media for images and information. Practically overnight, we drew up standards guidelines on how information gleaned from social media could be used.

There was a great deal of confusion. Some tweeters from Iran changed their location to escape censorship and harassment. Tweeters from outside Iran contributed to Iran-related feeds— some with support, some with false information, some with irrelevant tweets.

A number of fake feeds were set up, some by the authorities, according to activists.

Just whom could we trust?

In the Telegraph, columnist Andrew Keen wrote that “the early promise of a democratic Twitter powered revolution (had) been replaced by a series of bleak lessons in digital realpolitik.”

A little over a year earlier, in Kenya, the digital revolution helped empower journalists covering the elections there. Let’s remember that in Kenya–and in much of Africa, where Internet penetration is barely 5 percent– the mobile phone, not the computer, is the networking tool.

Journalists were able to transmit news, such as poll results from remote locations, immediately via text messages, circumventing government controls. But later, during ethnic clashes after the elections, the same technology was used to spread false rumors and to threaten journalists.

As Tom Rhodes, who heads the Africa program of the Committee to Protect Journalists, put it, “Though many Kenyans used text messages and blogs to urge a peaceful resolution during the post-election crisis, others encouraged violence.”

Think back 15 years. If today’s Internet and social media like Facebook and Twitter and robust mobile platforms had been available, could they have helped prevent the genocide in Rwanda—or at least serve as a counterweight to inflammatory domestic television and radio broadcasts? Might social media have made it harder for the world to turn a blind eye to the massacres? Or might the voices warning of genocide have been lost in an Internet cacophony of celebrity news, trivia and self-important shouting?

The invitation to this event tells us that, two decades after the fall of the Wall, today’s open Internet is playing a pivotal role in advancing participatory democracy around the globe. I believe that is true. But the Internet is really a utility. It can empower and amplify voices that otherwise would not be heard and it can unite communities of interest into powerful networks.

But how do those voices and networks cut through the cacophony and the disinformation?

It is here that I believe we in the mainstream media have an important role to play.

For far too many years, news organizations had an arrogant, one-way relationship with their audiences. We gathered news, packaged it in ways we thought made sense and shoveled it out to our audiences. If they liked what we delivered, fine. If not, well, they could always write a letter to the newspaper editor.

In today’s media world, not only is feedback instantaneous. Anyone with an Internet connection can be a publisher, can raise their voice, can tell the world what they see and what they think.

But my, what a din! How can anyone know whom to trust?

In the old, arrogant, one-way world, we told you whom you could trust—us! And by and large you did. But over the past 20 years, trust in news organizations – particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom—has plummeted to new lows. A recent Pew Center survey found that barely a quarter of Americans believed news organizations generally got the facts right in a story.

Once that trust is lost, we mainstream news organizations also run the risk of becoming just another lonely voice in the cacophony.

So how do we retain—or regain—that trust, and how do we remain relevant in today’s connected world?

We start by telling the world about the rules we live by and truly living by those rules. We also must be an enthusiastic partner and participant in the newly democratized world of Internet publishing and social media. We need to shed the arrogance and share the standards and values that give us strength and credibility. By doing so, we provide resources to others to create responsible, ethical journalism.

Let me offer a couple of examples of what we at Reuters have done.

First, in July we made the Reuters Handbook of Journalism available to the public for free online at handbook.reuters.com. It’s my hope that the citizen journalist, the student, the teacher, the budding reporter, the blogger will be able to learn and benefit from our handbook. By putting the 513-page handbook online, it will be available to countless thousands who otherwise would not have had access.

We decided to make the handbook available for a number of reasons.

The first is transparency. At a time when trust is such an endangered commodity—in both the publishing and financial worlds—it’s important for news consumers to see the guidelines Reuters journalists follow.

Just as important, however, is the service we hope the handbook will provide to journalists, publishers, teachers and students around the world. As the barriers to publishing have practically disappeared, practically anyone can be a publisher. But it’s also become clear that publishers have varying standards of truth, fairness and style. Our handbook is a good place for a new journalist or publisher to begin to develop his or her own standards.

And there’s a feedback button to tell us what we might have wrong or how to improve the handbook.

But it’s not enough for us to merely share our rulebook. We must be actively engaged in the new media reality.

Reuters journalists use social media to report and distribute news and we are developing new standards and guidelines to help us do that in a way that we can retain the trust of our audience. As those guidelines are developed, they will be added to the Handbook of Journalism.

We’ve also reached out to our publishing colleagues in the blogosphere to complement our reporting. I’m honored to be on the program with Sami Ben Gharbia of Global Voices, just as we were honored to work with Global Voices on our news website Reuters.com. Global Voices bloggers have supplemented Reuters coverage of a number of stories, including the Mumbai bombings, the visit of Hu Jintao to the United States and this year’s elections in Iran.

These are small steps in the vast information ecosystem of the Internet, but I believe they demonstrate ways we can help promote responsible, high-quality journalism across the Internet, in a media environment without walls.

We are living in a scary but exciting media world. The world’s financial system is facing challenges not seen since the Great Depression. Mainstream news organizations are struggling, as advertisers cut back and customers cut spending. As news becomes available—for free—from a vast range of sources, we face challenges in adding value to our product.

But we in the mainstream media have a responsibility to be enthusiastic participants in—and moderators of—this exciting and challenging world.

I think again of those wonderful young singers from Dresden in the Christmas Day concert of 20 years ago. The fall of the Wall was their story –and the media of the day shared that story with the world. Now they’re in their 30s and the media they and their children use include the Internet, Blackberrys and iPhones.

What will be their children’s story? Whatever it is, they will be able to share it in ways undreamed of when the Wall fell. And no matter how the storytelling medium changes, we in the mainstream media must be there to help.

Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.

One thing I’ve tried to be consistent about in this column is the notion of transparency.

As I’ve written, at a time when trust is such an endangered commodity in the financial and media worlds, it’s important that news consumers see the guidelines our journalists follow. That’s why we made our Handbook of Journalism available free online.

But it’s also important to remember that handbooks don’t do journalism. Journalists do. And journalists are continually facing new challenges in a brutal economic climate with tough competition and a news cycle that is measured in seconds — or less.

So in the interests of transparency, I want to share with you a piece written by my colleague Sean Maguire, who is Reuters editor for political and general news. Recently, I introduced a panel discussion in London on journalism ethics, sponsored by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Sean, a panel participant, was questioned sharply about how Reuters handled a report on Sept. 11 about Coast Guard vessels supposedly involved in a gun battle on the Potomac River. Were we too quick to pick up a story quoting another news organization? Here’s what Sean had to say.

Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.

This week brought more distressing news for journalists, as a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found the U.S. public more critical than ever of the accuracy and independence of the media.

Only 29 percent of Americans believe that news organisations generally get the facts straight, the survey found, the lowest level in the survey’s near quarter-century history.

It gets worse:

–Just 26 percent said the media are careful that reporting is not politically biased.
–Only 20 percent believe news organisations are independent of powerful people and organisations.
–Barely a fifth believe the media are willing to admit mistakes.

And news organisations have been able to do what politicians have failed at: creating consensus across party lines. Now solid majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents all believe that stories are often inaccurate and tend to favor one side.

It’s been a long road down. Back in 1985, in the first survey on media performance cited by Pew, 55 percent said news outlets get the facts straight and only 45 percent said the press was politically biased. Now 60 percent see political bias and only 18 percent say the media deal fairly with all sides of political and social issues.

What are we to do?

In the face of criticism, there’s sometimes a tendency to take shelter, keep one’s head down and hope the critics go away. But they won’t go away. And judging by the passionate and sometimes vitriolic criticisms I see in our comment sections, there are significant numbers of readers who will never believe reporters can put aside personal viewpoints and report a story accurately and fairly. You only have to look at discussions of coverage in the Middle East to see that.

The proper response, I believe, can be summed up in two words: More transparency.

That’s why we decided to make freely available to the public the guidelines our journalists live by when we published our Handbook of Journalism–and asked for feedback on it. That’s why I’m doing this job. That’s why we’re aggressive and open about correcting our mistakes. That’s why, in this blog and others, we welcome comments and debate on our work and issues in the news.

Reuters Editor in Chief David Schlesinger put it well in a recent speech, when he described journalism, at its best, as “a mirror, exposing back to society a true and brutally honest picture of what is going on.”

“When we fail at that,” he said, “when our picture is not clear or is at all distorted, we deserve to be criticised.”

At the risk of violating metaphor-overload rules, I invite you to take advantage of the windows we’re opening into our world–our Handbook of Journalism and our blogs–to tell us when you see a distorted picture or when the view is foggy. Or when it’s clear and distinct.

Judging by the dim view of the media revealed in the Pew survey, we can’t open the windows too wide or too soon.

Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.

Last month we made our Handbook of Journalism freely available online, and the response has been gratifying.

Since then, several thousand of you–hundreds each day– have visited the Handbook and a quick analysis of the traffic shows how global the audience is.

Visitors have come from 106 countries. Not surprisingly, about 32 percent of visits have come from the United States and 16 percent from the United Kingdom. But Germany accounted for 7 percent of visits. Rounding out the top 10 are Canada, Singapore, India, Russia, South Africa, Australia and Brazil.

Visitors have viewed 207 separate pages and are averaging just under three pages per visit. Some are using it much more intensely: One visitor spent 32 minutes with the handbook and visited 72 pages. Of visitors from the top 10 countries, Brazilians are spending the most time with the handbook per visit.

We’ve already had some useful feedback and comments on my column. One visitor wrote to note some inconsistencies in our American spelling style, which we’ve adjusted. Others have suggested possible new entries, which we’re exploring.

Coming soon: A button on the main page of the handbook, which will make it easier for you to provide feedback; and an easier route to the handbook from Reuters.com.

Thanks for all the comments and feedback so far–and thanks for using the handbook.

Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.

It’s Oscar time, and I’m again reminded of the debt Hollywood and journalists owe each other. Journalists supply Hollywood with great stories and Hollywood sometimes makes us look cool—or at least worth a couple of hours of time and the price of a ticket.

Put aside the fact that a number of Hollywood movies literally are made from the pages of journalism –“Saturday Night Fever,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Adaptation,” to name only a few, were all based on magazine stories. We journalists are also the very characters that Hollywood screenwriters sometimes love.

In addition to sometimes bringing out our cool factor—although, really, what aspiring reporter could resist Robert Redford’s corduroy suits in “All the President’s Men”? — Hollywood movies can illuminate the kind of ethical, moral and values issues that journalists have to deal with.

This year’s slate of Oscar nominees again includes a movie with journalism as its subject. “Frost/Nixon,” the film adaptation of the Broadway play about British journalist David Frost’s pursuit of the ultimate interview with disgraced former U.S. President Richard Nixon, is nominated for five Oscars.

So here is a completely arbitrary list of my top dozen movies about journalism that have something to say about the way we do our jobs–ethical or unethical, selfish or selfless. Aside from that, about the only thing they have in common is that they all were at least nominated for Oscars. I’ll also acknowledge that most of the films are U.S.-oriented, like the Oscars. So I want to especially encourage feedback and suggestions for films from all parts of the world. (A word of warning: There will be plot spoilers.)

The envelope, please.

12: “Roman Holiday” (1953)—A journalist decides that there are things worth more than getting the story– love and happiness, for example. Gregory Peck plays a struggling American reporter for a celebrity-oriented magazine in Rome assigned to cover a princess (Audrey Hepburn) on a state visit. The princess wants a taste of “real” life and escapes her handlers and falls into the arms of Peck, who sees the liaison as a chance to get an exclusive story and escape his down-at-the-heels lifestyle. Naturally, they fall in love and the princess sees just how much fun the common people can have. But Peck decides the exclusive story isn’t worth ruining his subject’s happiness as the princess reluctantly returns to her duties. Extra points for a bearded Eddie Albert’s portrayal of crazed photographer.

11: “Reds” (1981)–A journalist crosses the line from covering his subject to becoming part of the story. Warren Beatty is radical American journalist John Reed, who already writes from a strong point of view. He becomes more involved in leftist party politics, journeys to Russia to cover the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and becomes a semi-official voice for the cause, all the while engaged in a tempestuous love affair with fellow journalist Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton). Extra points for Jack Nicholson’s lecherous but poetic role as Eugene O’Neill.

10: “The Year of Living Dangerously” (1982)—A journalist uses his relationships with a lover and colleagues to further his career before deciding that love really is more important. Mel Gibson is an Australian radio reporter sent to Indonesia in the 1960s as President Sukarno breaks with the West. Working with a dwarf photographer named Billy Kwan (a stunning Oscar turn by Linda Hunt), his career prospers and he falls in love with a British diplomat (Sigourney Weaver), who may or may not be using him. As he gets wind of a coup, he must decide between love and his career. Love wins.

9: “The Killing Fields” (1984)–A foreign correspondent learns he can’t do his job without his courageous local colleagues and that life and friendship are more important than getting the story. Sam Waterston is New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, stationed in Cambodia as the Khmer Rouge take over. His colleague, Cambodian journalist Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor) sends his family to the U.S. as the Khmer Rouge move in, but Pran stays behind to work with Schanberg and falls victim to the brutal Khmer Rouge. Schanberg is wracked with guilt and works to ensure that Pran also gets credit for the award-winning journalism. After they were reunited, Pran worked in New York for The Times as a photographer and died last year.

8: “Broadcast News” (1987)—A trio of sad television journalists battle over the authenticity of news and learn that style often trumps substance. William Hurt is a handsome but glib and shallow newsman who’s not above staging shots and faking tears. Albert Brooks is his neurotic, by-the-book rival whose ethics, passion and knowledge are no match for Hurt’s hollow charm. Both men are after the romantic and professional attention of Holly Hunter’s producer, whose journalistic skill and success are equalled only by her private, self-destructive depression. Will the authentic journalist and authentic love win out? Don’t count on it.

7: “Citizen Kane” (1941)—It had to be here, didn’t it? A newspaperman’s youthful idealism turns to power-mad self interest. Orson Welles’ magnificent film about the fictional Charles Foster Kane (now who might that be?) tracks the rise and fall of a journalist who got into the business to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted and dies a lonely, loveless tycoon. A great moment in the idealistic phase, as Kane talks about his creed: “…It is my duty, and I’ll let you in on a little secret, it is also my pleasure—to see to it that decent, hard-working people of this community aren’t robbed blind by a pack of money-mad pirates just because they haven’t anybody to look after their interests.”

6: “Frost/Nixon” (2008)—Journalists and politicians can’t live without each other and sometimes do the right things for the wrong reasons. In a gripping piece of drama and history, television journalist David Frost (Michael Sheen) seeks to save his career by landing an exclusive interview with former President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella). Frost wants to get the scoop and make news by forcing the disgraced president to confess. Nixon wants a platform to clear his name -–and the $600,000 fee. The truth wins.

5: “The Insider” (1999)—Corporate self-interest clashes with public-service journalism—and people in the middle get hurt. Al Pacino plays an aggressive television producer who wants to tell the story of whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand’s (Russell Crowe) revelation that the tobacco industry not only knew their product was dangerous, but deliberately tried to increase its addictiveness. When Pacino’s corporate bosses become nervous, Crowe loses his job, his wife and almost everything but his self-respect. Extra points for Christopher Plummer’s complex portrayal of Mike Wallace.

4: “Ace in the Hole” (1951)—A journalist who will do anything—and I mean anything—to get the story and revive a career. Once called one of the most cynical movies ever made, this is certainly one of the most cynical portrayals of a journalist. Kirk Douglas is Chuck Tatum, a down-on-his-luck former big-city journalist who stumbles on a story of a man trapped in a cave in New Mexico. Tatum takes charge and prolongs the rescue effort to milk the story for all the headlines it will take to get him back to the big time. (“Bad news sells best. Cause good news is no news.”) All the while, Tatum is romancing the trapped man’s wife, a blowsy Jan Sterling (“I don’t go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.”).

3: “Network” (1976)—The line between news and entertainment blurs to invisibility. Released the same year as “All the President’s Men” (below), “Network” portrays journalists in a decidedly less positive way. Longtime network journalist and now ratings-challenged anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) has an on-air breakdown after learning he will be fired and promises to kill himself on the air. His struggling network decides to encourage his implosion after Beale’s antics begin to catch on, billing him as the “Mad Prophet of the Air Waves.” Beale’s famous line is, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more,” but the more telling one is: “ But, man, you’re never going to get any truth from us. We’ll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell.”

2: “All the President’s Men” (1976)—Hard-working journalists put their reputations on the line in pursuit of public good. As earnest in its portrayal of journalists as its Oscar-rival “Network” was cynical, Alan Pakula’s film focuses on journalists as investigating, crusading watchdogs. A search of the script fails to turn up any references to “ethics”, “ethical” or “unethical,” but few films about journalists portray reporters—played memorably by Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford—as more dedicated to not just getting the story, but getting it right. And I still get nervous in lonely parking garages.

1: “Good Night, and Good Luck” (2005)—A tough choice for No. 1, but for me no film does a better of job of telling the story of journalists who act courageously and responsibly, fighting powerful corporate pressure to take on injustice. Perpetually wreathed in the tobacco smoke that killed him far too young, storied journalist Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and his producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney) challenge and eventually triumph over Red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy. And extra points for Frank Langella (“Frost/Nixon”) and his nuanced portrayal of CBS chief Bill Paley.

So what do you think? What are your favorite journalism movies? What would be on your list of films journalists should either pay attention to or ignore? And again, I’d especially like to see suggestions for films made outside the U.S. Let the fray begin.

I spent last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos producing content for reuters.com, running some experiments in new ways to cover a conference, and observing the growing integration of social media into a major mainstream event.

We had great success with giving our correspondents ‘Flip cameras’ with which to grab short comments from delegates on the key issues of the Forum. You can see some of these on our ‘Davos debates’ on the economy, financial regulation, environment, and ethics. The major learning point was that these were much, much easier to use than the mobile phones we used last year in Davos.

Less successful was our attempt to make the Forum more participatory by turning the tables and getting delegates prepared to admit they didn’t have all the answers to 'ask the audience' via Reuters. This was a good idea in theory, and one that we'll try again, but it was a struggle to find delegates comfortable with the notion that the Davos brainpower might not be enough to solve the world’s problems.

Nevertheless, World Economic Forum President Klaus Schwab set an excellent example (and got a very healthy response):

Elsewhere, we did use mobiles and the qik video-streaming service to go live ‘behind the scenes’ of the forum and the Reuters News operation.

I was co-sited with the team that produced the WEF-sponsored 'Davos Today' programme -- a high-end TV show with a professional team of Reuters broadcast journalists behind it.

Comparing the two kinds of video output is a bit like putting a garage band up against a symphony orchestra, but we think they'll prove complementary.

Since last year's Forum, the micro-blogging service Twitter has achieved widespread uptake and we encouraged our correspondents to use it to provide short updates on their impressions of the Forum publishing the best of their output, and that of other delegates, journalists and bloggers in our 'Davos Chatter' feature.

Our editor-in-chief, David Schlesinger, even managed to scoop his own news service during one session, prompting a debate about whether micro-blogging services like Twitter might come to form a part of news organisations’ output in the future.

Other highlights of social media at the WEF included a series of vibrant YouTube debates, voting via Facebook during a dozen sessions (including one on the economy that generated 120,000 responses) and a crowd-sourced interview with Kofi Annan via Seesmic – a video version of Twitter.

Via qik, I asked Seesmic founder Loic le Meur for his impressions of social media at Davos and how he’d gone about the social interview with Annan.:

What does this all add up to?

Davos was a good illustration of three forces changing the nature of conferences,

First, the availability of cheap, easy-to-use, highly portable technology makes it easier to capture the ‘third voice’ of conferences – the ‘chatter’ between delegates about the event. (The 1st voice being that of principal speakers, the 2nd the output of professional journalists or analysts.) This is what we attempted to do with our ‘Davos chatter’ feature.

Second, the ubiquity of social networks makes it possible to amplify the impact of an event by projecting it into social media, where there is a bigger and more diverse audience, and then bringing the responses back in to liven up proceedings. This is an aspect of what Klaus Schwab was getting at and what the Facebook voting was doing.

Third, there’s a longer-established trend of ‘humanising’ content – first-person, conversational forms that started with blogging, became video-based via upload services like YouTube, was radically simplified via micro-blogging and now, with services like Seesmic, is supporting conversation via short-form video.

The Annan interview particularly interested me because it brought together all three aspects.

I’ve been tweeting from the World Economic Forum, using the microblogging platform Twitter to discuss the mundane (describing crepuscular darkness of the Swiss Alps at 5 a.m.) or the interesting (live tweeting from presentations).

Is it journalism?

Is it dangerous?

Is it embarrassing that my tweets even beat the Reuters newswire?

Am I destroying Reuters standards by encouraging tweeting or blogging?

(These aren’t rhetorical questions - I’ve been challenged by many people who would answer those questions as No, Yes, Yes, and Yes! I answer them as Yes, Potentially, No and No.)

The foundation of what we do as a company and as a news service are the Reuters Trust Principles.

While it is vital to read the five as a whole, I take the fifth (”That no effort shall be spared to expand, develop and adapt the news and other services and products of Thomson Reuters so as to maintain its leading position in the international news and information business”) as an imperative for continual innovation and experimentation.

I have no idea what journalism will look like in five years except that it will be different than it is now. That’s a great thing, I believe.

I have little patience for those who cling to sentimental (and frankly inaccurate) memories of the good old halcyon days of journalism that were somehow purer and better than a world where tweets and blogs compete with news wires and newspapers.

Bring it on, I say!

Journalism is one of the great self-declared professions and crafts.  I am a journalist because I said I was one more than two decades ago and have spent the years since working on my abilities. I am not one because I am somehow anointed with a certificate or an exam result.

Journalism is ideally designed for democratisation.

Working for Reuters gives me a tremendous platform and great access. It does not give me a license.

Microblogging and macroblogging and social networks are themselves great platforms.

If great storytellers use those platforms to display their knowledge, access, expertise and abilities, I think that is a marvellous advance.

If I don’t beat the Reuters wire with a live tweet because I deliberately hold back, someone else will. If I don’t beat the Reuters wire because I’m slow or inattentive, someone else will.

The reason my live tweeting was fast is that it was unintermediated, while the journalist covering the story went the traditional route and had a discussion with an editor about how best to position and play the story.

Both methods have important roles. In this case, the editor added value.

In a democratic world where publishing platforms are available to all, editors and institutions like Reuters MUST add great value if they are to survive the competitive fight with the unintermediated storytellers.

I love that.

I love the competitive pressure that brings.

I love the way it will force us continually to redefine our role vis-a-vis unaffiliated storytellers.

I love the way it is and will continue to force us to redefine our profession and our craft.

Are there potential pitfalls and dangers? Could a mistweet hurt our reputation? Of course. And over time we will have to work hard to decide what we have reporters tweet in their own names and what we have them do in the company name; we’ll have to refine our rules about micro and macroblogging to allow the maximum of free expression while holding fast to our important values of being fair, accurate and free from bias.

But we will get there. And consumers of news will be the ultimate beneficiaries.