Last week I was told that Reuters has lost its ethical bearings. You've sacrificed the sacred tenet of accuracy by rushing to publish information without checking if it is true. Your credibility has suffered, the value of your brand will wither and the service you offer to clients has been devalued, I heard.

It was a meaty accusation, especially as it came in the midst of a debate on ethics in journalism held at the London home of ThomsonReuters, the parent of the Reuters news organisation. The charge came from former Reuters journalists and a senior member of the trustees body that monitors Reuters compliance with its core ethical principles.

So what specifically were we being accused of and what defence did I offer?

On the 8th anniversary of the Sept 11th attacks, a day of more than normal sensitivity to security matters, CNN in the United States reported that the U.S. Coast Guard had fired on a boat in the Potomac River in Washington D.C. President Obama was visiting the nearby Pentagon at the time. Reuters rushed out a story on the reports of gunfire, citing CNN as the source for the information, while urgently checking with law enforcement officials. It transpired that CNN had been monitoring radio traffic on an unencrypted Marine frequency and had overheard a training exercise in which crew members shouted 'bang bang'. Quickly we put out an update to our story making clear it was a false alarm.

I had played a part in crafting our policy on handling such stories and from my place on the debate panel I offered another example for the audience to chew on.  On Oct. 21 Britain's Sky News reported that the Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi had died in Libya. We put out a story, sourced to Sky News and repeating how it said it had the information of the death, while checking with officials and al-Megrahi's legal team in Scotland. We quickly established that Sky had it wrong and updated our story to say so.

It is grating for any journalist to publish information that turns out to be incorrect. Even if we can say that the original error was made elsewhere some of the flak hits those who replicate the mistake. After all, those who republish a libel are as liable for it as its originator. 

So why did we not check first and publish later? 

The answer goes to the heart of how the news business has changed, how the notion of authoritativeness has altered and how Reuters journalists interpret the values they live by.

But first let's scotch one myth. Embarrassing publicity notwithstanding, it is relatively rare for Reuters to publish what turns out to be an erroneous report by another news organisation. Since we instituted our current policy on 'pick-ups,' as they are known in the trade, the level of 'echoed mistakes,' has neither grown nor fallen.  

To provide a complete service to our customers our policy is to pick up stories of significance that are being carried by normally reliable media that are in a position to know what they are reporting.   Hence the decision to quote CNN, which has a good record on reporting its own home turf, or Sky, which has broken news on the Lockerbie bomber story and follows it closely.  We protect our reputation by carefully acknowledging the source of the information and speedily checking its veracity. And hundreds of times every day Reuters journalists decline to go with a story running on local media because it 'smells' wrong, is trivial, or both. Mostly that decision is vindicated. The old school would have it that our policy is a failure of journalism. Yet walking the right line between publishing everything and publishing nothing actually requires a finer exercise of judgment. Better journalism, in other words. 

The counter-argument is that we should only publish when we have 100 percent certainty from our own sources.  That may be possible for a news organisation with a longer publishing timescale, such as a newspaper, or a periodical magazine. Yet even they, with online arms that are increasingly as 'real-time' as Reuters, the Associated Press or Bloomberg, face the same challenges of dealing with fast-breaking stories as the news agencies.  With the advent of the Internet has come a cacophony of online voices that amplify and accelerate information, frequently dropping reference to where it originated or how it first became known. In that environment readers look to news services like Reuters to tell them what is known, and how it is known, with clarity and speed, regardless of whether we originated the story or not. In a complex, fast-moving world, no news organisation, no matter how well-resourced, can be first to report everything. All of us target the news we want to break and rely on others, who are sometimes allies and sometimes competitors, to paint their part of the picture.   

Has our approach destroyed the relationship of trust that our clients and readers have with us?    

The question supposes there was once a golden age of authoritative journalism where sourcing was always rigorous and the pursuit of truth always relentless. History suggests otherwise. Current anxiety over journalistic values is often a proxy for broader worry over the health of the media industry. Declining revenues have driven cost cutting that has threatened, many feel, the standards of journalism. Reuters is stressing speed for fear of losing its audience, critics say, and will do so at the expense of its reputation for accuracy.  

Yet our business has always put a premium on speed, and given that we are one of very few global news organisations that is expanding its staff during the downturn we feel we are doing the right things to maintain our audience.

The nature of authority in the news business has also changed. Real-time readers understand breaking news is contingent, uncertain and provisional. Exclusivity evaporates fast as aggregators, citers and plagiarists disseminate the fruits of others' reporting toil. Respect is won by breaking news and by operating with clear rules and standards. But it also come from guiding readers carefully to the reports of others, binding the audience in with compelling packages of conversation, illumination and curated content.

When the first plane hit the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, Reuters did not put out a story instantly. We were so mesmerised by the unbelievability of the event, and so uncertain over how to handle what we saw on CNN, that we froze. How many readers were lost that day and how many on the day of the Potomac gun battle that never was?

-Tim Cocks is a Reuters correspondent in Iraq.-

This month we reported that the number of civilians dying violent deaths in Iraq had hit a fresh low since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion — about 125 for September.

Sounds like a lot, but for a country that only two years ago was seeing dozens of bodies pile up in the streets each day from tit-for-tat sectarian killing, it was definitely progress.

And as I prepare to end my assignment in Iraq this week, I need no argument from numbers to convince me that things are better here than when I arrived in Feb. 2008.

During my first few months, militants loyal to to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were raising hell in Baghdad, firing mortars and rockets at the Green Zone almost every hour. We could hear or feel them thud on impact, especially when they fell short, on our side of the Tigris.

A rocket hit the BBC building opposite us, causing a blast loud enough to shake our windows, although thankfully no one at the BBC was hurt by the strike.

U.S. airstrikes on Baghdad’s Sadr City slum were killing many civilians. Roadside and car bombs were erupting all over the place and the streets were largely deserted after dark.

Eighteen months on and things are hardly back to normal but, as any Iraqi will tell you, Iraq feels safer than it was.

Security forces have been purged of Shi’ite militiamen and are doing a better job of stopping suicide bombings, enabling U.S. combat forces to largely pull out of Iraq’s cities in June.

We rarely hear explosions in Baghdad. A semblance of law and order seems to be taking shape.
Reporting from Iraq, as a Westerner or an Iraqi, has been a tough business for some time. For Westerners, apart from the fact that few foreign correspondents here speak passable Arabic, the big headache remains security.

Ever since insurgents started kidnapping Westerners and beheading them in 2004, the foreign press corps here have been living in a kind of semi-incarceration, behind rows of concrete blast walls that make you feel a bit like a lab rat in a maze.

It varies from media organisation to the next, but all of us are pretty restricted in our movements.
We generally keep a low profile, moving around Baghdad in low key armoured cars. We don’t wander the streets for long periods of time or frequent bars and nightclubs after work.

The assumption is that any Westerner is a prime target for kidnappers — for political reasons or for a juicy ransom.

And this is not to say there are no dangers to Iraqi media workers. More than 130 have died in violence since the beginning of the war.

Seven of our colleagues from Reuters have been killed in that time, most of them Iraqis.

Security restrictions have left us heavily dependent on dedicated local journalists who can visit places we cannot and help us cobble together stories we send to the wire.

That’s perhaps as it should be in a global news agency with strong local talent, but it’s hard not to miss roaming the streets as I would in almost any other country.

As a military correspondent, embedding with U.S. troops has been an experience, though it can hard to get the full picture that way — for instance, persuading a nervous bystander in the street to talk to you when you’re surrounded by heavily-armed American soldiers has proved a real challenge.

As security improves, our leash has been lengthened. I’ve been able to travel to places with that were once off-limits, like many parts of northern Iraq.

Will it continue getting better? No one can claim to know the answer to that question. Many Iraqis are pessimistic, as well they might be after decades of war, dictatorship, brutal sanctions and sectarian bloodshed. But since Iraq was pulled back from the brink in 2007, it has defied gloomy predictions.

But I’m reminded of comments by the head of the Red Cross Iraq delegation Juan-Pedro Schaerer about avoiding the temptation to write off Iraq’s persistent violence as “normal”.

This week, one of our journalists, Ahmed, was awoken in the middle of the night by loud gunshots.

Gunmen had stormed the house of his neighbour and family doctor, and shot him in the head. Ahmed took him to hospital, where he remains in critical condition. He may never walk or talk again.
Clearly, that feeling of nearly normality is fragile.

Related blog: A voice in the wilderness?

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.

-Padraig Reidy is news editor at Index on Censorship. The opinions expressed are his own.-

Mainstream consumer media is, it is agreed, in trouble. The idea of paying for one or two newspapers a day is now confined, it seems, to quaintly old-fashioned types who boast of their ignorance of the Internet, or business who actually need the information in the pages of the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Wire services’ content is processed so fast by subscribers that one can barely spot the time difference. Local newspapers are seeing their stock in trade diminished. When one’s entire life is catalogued on Facebook and Flickr, there’s little thrill in having your picture in the local paper, or indeed huge necessity in publishing births, deaths and marriages. And why place a classified ad in a newspaper, when we have eBay and Gumtree?

The solution? Some, such as “Wired” magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, would suggest simply giving things away. Anderson’s new book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” is available for free from the web until 1 August, while the hardback edition will be sold, at a price, in shops and on Amazon.

The idea, Anderson tells the Los Angeles Times is that some of those who download for free will also buy the book, if they are sufficiently impressed, of course. It’s a principle that has already been seen at work in the music world, where Radiohead released ‘In Rainbows’ freely on the web, and later released the album to shops, without any noticeable decline in sales.

But can this model work for news, long term? Books and songs are thing we accumulate, collect and return to. Professionals, academics and institutions aside, very few people retain newspaper articles in any way. Yesterday’s news tends to be precisely that, condemned, at best, to the recycling bin. Online, trends tend to move so fast that one could seriously question Chris Anderson’s ‘Long Tail’ theory.

Old news articles’ major purpose now seems to be for cutting and pasting into online arguments on forums and messageboards, useful for those engaged in debate, but perhaps not so much for anyone wishing to create revenue from content.

Some have put forward the idea that governments could fund local and national media to a much greater extent. But while the continued high reputation of the BBC shows that state ownership is not necessarily a bad thing, but in the UK there are already fears that local government funded media, such as freesheets and online TV stations, all too quickly become nothing more than propaganda for the leading party in the council chamber.

And internationally, while government-funded media may be relatively trustworthy in liberal democracies, there are far too many examples of state-run media in less free countries about the capability of reporters to stray from the party line, and governments have proved adept at manipulating media, even to the point of slowing Internet connections — the 21st century equivalent of smashing the printing presses.

Independent media needs independent funding. But how will this be done, in the age of free? Is it too late to ask people to pay for news online?

- John Kampfner is chief executive of Index on Censorship and former editor of the New Statesman. His new book, “Freedom for Sale”, will be published by Simon and Schuster in September. The opinions expressed are his own. -

The news could not have come at a worse time for free speech campaigners. Revelations that private detectives have been paid large sums by the tabloid press to hack into the mobile phones and other records of public figures will cause damage to the newspaper at the heart of the practice, the “News of the World”.

It will not enhance the credibility of its former Editor, Andy Coulson, now David Cameron’s trusted Director of Communications at the Conservative Party.

But the consequences are far more important than the future of a tabloid and a spin doctor. The scandal – for it is a scandal – has unleashed a further bout of yelping from the “something must be done” brigade, the people in public life who argue that the media has long been “out of control”.

Their cheerleader is Tony Blair, who famously used one of his last days as prime minister to take revenge on journalists, deriding them as “feral beasts”.

The painful truth is that, in one respect, these people are not wrong. British journalism contains no shortage of sleazy practice. And yet the context is entirely misleading. The biggest problem with the Fourth Estate is not that it finds out too much, but that it finds out too little. Investigative journalism is a declining art.

Much of that is due to economics. It costs a considerable amount to deploy a team to eke out information about, say, a dodgy arms deal, unethical corporate practice, or British collusion in torture. Sometimes months of probing leads to nothing, and editors are under pressure to account for every penny they spend. Some of the decline is attributed to simply laziness. It takes a lot of effort to commission and see through difficult stories.

But the main impediment comes from Britain’s horrific libel laws. So skewed is the legislation and the practice that the burden of proof in court falls entirely on the media, rather than the plaintiff. The costs have grown beyond all proportion and are entirely out of sync with the original “offence”. This has led to malicious threats of prosecutions by the rich and famous, forcing newspapers to retract, even where they know the information to be correct, simply because they cannot afford to sustain their defence.

Britain has now become the libel capital of the world, the home of what has come to be known as “libel tourism”, the destination of choice for Russian oligarchs and others to prosecute not just journalists, but book authors, even NGOs. The chilling effect is hard to quantify, because beyond the prosecutions and threats lies the self censorship that is affecting so much journalism at the moment. The new mantra, from the BBC to most newspapers, even now to some bloggers, is: “why cause trouble?”

The House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport is putting the finishing to an enquiry it has been carrying out on “press standards, privacy and libel”—note the order. At Index on Censorship, in conjunction with English PEN, we have been conducting our own inquiry into the impact of libel. We have spoken to editors, lawyers, journalists, publishers, bloggers and NGO in a unified campaign for changes in the libel law.

We intend to issue our report in coming months as the government ponders its response to the Select Committee. We urge those preparing their conclusions to distinguish between robust investigative journalism that seeks to find out what the powerful would rather conceal from us and grubby and often illegal practice.

If they fail to make this distinction, if they tarnish us with the same brush, democracy and free expression will be the losers.

Have Your Say: Tabloid trickery versus the right to know

-Nicholas Jones is the author of Trading Information: Leaks, Lies and Tip-offs (Politico’s, 2006). He is a member of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom. The opinions expressed are his own.-

When searching for news and checking facts reporters often have to bend the rules and possibly break the law. But through its purchase of confidential mobile phone messages the “News of the World” has blackened the reputation of British journalism.

In a true democracy journalists have to be free to investigate without the constant fear of falling foul of the state or of being hounded by the police and the courts. Indeed principled journalists are ready to go to jail rather than reveal their sources.

But there is a huge difference between a justified breach of personal privacy in support of investigative journalism and a blatant fishing trip for private and confidential information.

From what is already known about the hacking into mobile phone messages of Prince William and others – for which a “News of the World” editor was sent to jail — it is clear that this was a calculated, commercially driven operation that was not only in breach of the law but an affront to established journalistic standards.

So great is the competition for exclusive stories that increasingly British newspapers and magazines have had fewer and fewer scruples when it comes to purchasing confidential information, whether it was leaked, stolen or gained through unauthorised access.

For example, every week the “Sun” and the “News of the World” offer their readers cash in return for exclusive stories and pictures. When there is money on offer, the temptation can be too great.

There are numerous cases where some of those who were responsible for safeguarding confidential information and data have abused their position. Police officers, tax inspectors, bank staff and a host of other workers who gave access to personal and private data have been accused of passing on information to journalists.

Advances in technology have facilitated this trade and the opportunities multiply: incriminating footage on CCTV tapes find a ready market and so do pictures of notorious prisoners taken on mobile phones.

British newspapers are in the dock because the purchase of information is now so commonplace. But whatever the reservations of some journalists, the Daily Telegraph has demonstrated – with its disclosures about the abuse of MPs’ expenses – that even when confidential information has been purloined and then sold, there is a public interest defence.

What added justification to the purchase by the “Daily Telegraph” of the misappropriated disc from the House of Commons fees office was that MPs had changed the law on Freedom of Information in order to prevent the data from being published.

No such extenuating circumstances apply to the “News of the World”: by encouraging and condoning hacking into mobile phone messages and then by acquiescing at the sale of that information to the highest bidder, the “News of the World” shamed the good name of investigative journalism.

Have Your Say: Tabloid trickery versus the right to know

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

The first entry is abattoir (not abbatoir); the last is ZULU (a term used by Western military forces to mean GMT).

In between are 2,211 additional entries in the A-to-Z general style guide, part of the Reuters Handbook of Journalism, which we are now making available online. Also included in the handbook are sections on standards and values; a guide to operations; a sports style guide and a section of specialised guidance on such issues as personal investments by journalists, dealing with threats and complaints and reporting information found on the internet.

The handbook is the guidance Reuters journalists live by -- and we're proud of it. Until now, it hasn't been freely available to the public. In the early 1990s, a printed handbook was published and in 2006 the Reuters Foundation published a relatively short PDF online that gave some basic guidance to reporters. But it's only now that we're putting the full handbook online.

We've decided to make the handbook available to everyone for a number of reasons. Among them:

• Transparency: At a time when trust is an endangered commodity in the financial and media worlds, it's important that news consumers see the guidelines our journalists follow.
• Service: As we've seen over the past decade, the barriers to publishing have dropped so that anyone with an idea and a computer can be a publisher. But it's also become clear that publishers have a varying standard of truth, fairness and style. Our handbook is a good place for budding journalists to begin.
• Geography: Reuters serves a global audience and the handbook recognises the cultural and political differences that our journalists face in reporting for the world. This is a handbook not just for English-language journalists in the United Kingdom or the United States, but for wherever English is used.

Many entries deal with words that are sometimes confused or misused. Turning randomly to the "H" section, we learn the difference between hyperthermia and hypothermia (The latter means "Too cold. Think that o rhymes with low" while the former means "Too hot. Think of 'er' as in very."); Haarlem and Harlem (the latter is in New York City, the former in the Netherlands); hangar and hanger (the latter is for clothes, the former a shelter for aircraft); and hale and hail (the former means "free from disease, or to pull or haul by force." The latter "is to salute or call out, or an ice shower").

We take a global approach to the spelling of many words. Often, it's the United States against the world. For instance, our preferred style is "artefact," except in the U.S., where it's artifact. Same goes for axe and axeing -- our standards for most of the world -- which become ax and axing in the U.S. There's also "backwards," which loses its "s" in American stories, and "leukaemia," which loses that first "a" in the U.S. There's plenty more: tyre and tire, titbit and tidbit, and defence and defense.

In the world of diplomacy, economics and academe, the G3 is Germany, Japan and the U.S.; the G5 extends membership to France and the U.K.; G7 grows the club to Canada and Italy; make it G8 with Russia; G10 adds Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. As for the G24, G30 and G77, you'll have to look for yourself (we've got entries for them, too).

There are slang words to avoid (posh -- though one former Spice Girl might object) and a number of common misspellings (Viet Cong, not Vietcong; ventricle, not ventrical; machinegun, not machine gun; and ketchup, not catchup or catsup).

The sports section of the handbook offers a list of sports cliches to avoid (hard fought, made history, veteran, bounce back, and icon), the difference between a field and a pitch (the former's where American football and baseball are played), and an explanation of delight as a transitive verb that needs an object ("Marat Safin delighted Russian fans with a neat chip...not Marat Safin delighted with a chip."). Words like disaster and tragedy shouldn't be used in sports stories, as this devalues the significance of these words ("Losing a football match is not a disaster. A stand falling down and crushing a fan is").

When language implies a value judgment, we must use words very carefully (cult, for instance: One person's cult is another's religion). The entry for "good, bad" advises: "For financial and commodity markets good news and bad news depends on who you are and what your position is in the market. Avoid them."

One of the most controversial entries is that of "terrorism." The entry reads, in part:

"We may refer without attribution to terrorism and counter-terrorism in general but do not refer to specific events as terrorism. Nor do we use the adjective word terrorist without attribution to qualify specific individuals, groups or events. ... Report the subjects of news stories objectively, their actions, identity and background. Aim for a dispassionate use of language so that individuals, organisations and governments can make their own judgment on the basis of facts. Seek to use more specific terms like “bomber” or “bombing”, “hijacker” or “hijacking”, “attacker” or “attacks”, “gunman” or “gunmen” etc."

This policy has been passionately debated inside and outside Reuters. As  the handbook says, "we aim for dispassionate language" so that our customers can "make their own judgment on the basis of facts."

Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger puts it this way:

"Over the years we have been criticised for this policy on numerous occasions, when people or governments wanted us to label an incident ourselves rather than quote their views. Criticism of our policy was especially fierce when the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Reuters made the decision not to describe the attackers as terrorists, because we thought a label would not add to our vivid description of the thousands of deaths and the destruction of the iconic twin towers of the World Trade Center. In the years since, as the world has witnessed numerous other attacks, we've chosen to continue that policy of sticking with the facts and letting our readers make up their own minds based on our reporting and the evidence we present them."

It's important to point out that the handbook is a living document, one that preserves rules that have guided Reuters journalists through a century and half but also one that may change when the times change.  It's also important to note that the handbook is produced by humans who aren't infallible -- and it's used by humans who aren't infallible, so sometimes we make mistakes. I'm sure you'll let us know when we do, but we're usually harder on ourselves than anyone else is.

I hope you'll find the handbook useful, whether you're a journalist, a student, a teacher or an engaged reader. And we welcome your comments and suggestions.

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.

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

The president was inaugurated in front of adoring crowds and positive reviews in the media. As the unpopular incumbent sat on the platform with him, the new Democratic chief executive took office as the nation faced a crippling economic crisis. The incoming president was a charismatic figure who had run a brilliant campaign and had handled the press with aplomb. The media were ready to give him a break.

That was 1933, and in Franklin Roosevelt’s case, the media gave him a break.

For Barack Obama, the honeymoon was shorter.

Less than 36 hours after Obama took the oath of office, the White House denied news photographers access to the new president’s do-over swearing in, instead releasing official White House photos of the event. Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse protested and refused to distribute the official photos (which nevertheless showed up on the websites of a number of large U.S. newspapers).

This is an important issue for news organisations, the public and for an administration that has promised a new era of transparency in doing the people’s business. How are people to know, for example, that the official photos haven’t been staged?

All U.S. administrations seek to manage the flow of information and the White House and the news media have a complex, interdependent relationship. Each needs the other. But it’s important that media organisations remember who’s most important.

For Howard Goller, Reuters editor for political and general news for the U.S. and Canada, it’s clear who’s most important.

“A news organisation’s first obligation is to its clients," he says. "Our correspondents have a front-row seat at the White House, we ask questions at news conferences and briefings, and we travel with the president wherever he goes. Our photographers work just as hard for our customers. We became concerned when on taking office, the new administration prevented Reuters and other news organisations from taking our own photos. We’ve had several conversations with the new administration since those first days and we expect a more open relationship going forward.”

Most administrations get a bit of a honeymoon. Gallup polls show that every incoming, newly-elected president back to Dwight Eisenhower enjoyed majority approval ratings. Even the lowest-rated incoming presidents, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, had job approval ratings of 51 percent and disapproval ratings of only 13 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

Obama’s approval rating, 68 percent, was exceeded only by that of John F. Kennedy, who had a 72 percent rating. Even a plurality of Republicans—43 percent—give Obama positive marks.

The media have also generally been positive—or at least, not very negative-- about new presidents during their administrations’ first 100 days, one of those round numbers we seem to like so much.

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism compared the coverage of the two most recent first-term elected presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In measuring the tone of coverage by network television, newspapers and a major weekly news magazine, the study found that only 28 percent of the coverage of both presidents’ first two months was “negative.”

No president has been more successful at managing the media than Roosevelt. So carefully did the administration control the president’s image that only a few pictures were published in newspapers of the president—disabled by polio-- using his wheelchair. Indeed, in a scene in the movie “Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942),” James Cagney was able with a straight face to portray Roosevelt in a song and dance number, as the “president” wittily told reporters what was on and what was off the record.

Betty Houchin Winfield, a journalism professor at the University of Missouri, argues in “FDR and the News Media” that “FDR’s consummate news management skills served as a major key to his political artistry and leadership legacy” and that “a strong president such as Roosevelt can indeed influence the journalists’ newsgathering, the reporters’ reactions, and the final news stories.”

As Douglas McCollam notes in the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, many believe much of the media are already in the tank for Obama.

A Pew Research Center poll during the heat of the campaign in September 2008 found that 36 percent of those questioned believed news organisations were biased in favor of Obama, while only 14 percent said the media were biased in favor of Republican John McCain. Forty percent detected no bias. A Rasmussen poll last summer was even more stark, with 49 percent saying they believed most reporters would “try to help the Democrat with their coverage.” Just 14 percent believed reporters would try to help McCain win and only 24 percent believed that “most reporters will try to offer unbiased coverage.”

Those are depressing numbers for a journalist to read—and the only way to respond is to aggressively cover the issues that matter to your audience.

For Reuters News, that’s a global audience and a financial audience.

Goller says that in response to the change in administrations, “We have made some big changes, especially in the way we work together to cover the big economic stories in the face of the financial crisis as well as the politics of climate change and health care….We’ve put more people on both the White House and the Congressional beats in part because the president…has promised change and both he and the Democratic-led Congress have made a priority of addressing the crisis, no small matter for our core financial clients.”

So how do we balance the need to be close to the newsmakers at the White House with the danger of being in a bubble where news can be managed?

Goller puts it well: “For Reuters, the key is to keep our eye on the issues, and that means to be aware of the impact a president’s words and actions or non-actions have on business, the economy, other countries and Americans as a people. We ask the tough questions in the briefings—and in the stories we write. If we don’t get the answers, our stories say so. This is our job.”

As in coverage of the Middle East, there are partisans who will never, ever be convinced that journalists can report objectively. As in the coverage of the recent Gaza fighting, all we can ask our audience to do is judge us on the journalism we produce—and tell us when we’re wrong.

It’s especially important now, as coverage of the new administration moves out of the warm, feel-good glow of the inauguration. As we saw Wednesday, the stimulus bill passed the House without a single Republican vote, a reminder of the deep divisions that remain and a sign that the story of the Obama administration is just beginning. It will be up to the hard-nosed, experienced journalists in Washington to push beyond the soft, easy, feel-good stories and tell the hard and complete truth.