The Virginia tech shootings have been a defining moment for citizen journalism, as Reuters Community Editor Mark Jones writes about here. They also, once again, raised the question in many peoples minds about how far the media should go in reporting details.

Weve received a number of thoughtful letters on the subject, and heres a sample.

• I am sadden to see Reuters promoting the senseless acts of the Virginia Tech terrorist… Talk about it, talk about why, in hopes of preventing this sort of thing in the future, but do not play his videos or display his photos.
• With the help of the news media, [Cho Seung-Hui] has achieved his place in history… It was NOT necessary to disclose Cho’s video. NBC had a choice.
• Those of us seeking solid news do not need to be greeted with this visual. Please have respect for those who are suffering most and remove these disgusting images with those of just Cho’s face.

As a curious reader and as an editor, when something horrible happens Im drawn to find out as much as possible.

But as a person, I, also, often recoil at the sheer weight of the horror and sometimes the accumulated graphic detail does seem too much. It isnt a line thats easy to draw. Our obligation as journalists is to tell the story completely. Our obligation as people is to avoid going overboard.

I believe that the videos the shooter took of himself and the pictures of him holding the guns help make the story immediate and complete. They provide insight into his mind and his world. But I too found a point where I simply couldnt watch any more; I too found a point where any added detail was superfluous.

It isnt an easy line to draw, but its one that we and you have to wrestle with.

When have we told a complete, fair story? When have we given our readers the facts and the data they need to understand what happened? When is it enough? We debate these questions ourselves, but we find the comments you send fascinating and valuable.

I wanted to say a little about the launch last week of a new Reuters Africa website and to answer some of the points already raised by bloggers and journalists.

Under the Reuters Trust Principles were committed to covering the world in an even-handed fashion. Africa tends not to make the international headlines outside war and other humanitarian disasters but we know, because weve got people on the ground, that stories from Africa are as rich and varied as from any other continent.

The Africa site should be seen as part of our efforts to make sure Africa is covered as well as any other continent.

Columbia Journalism Review, lamenting the reduction of U.S. foreign correspondents, makes the point that the launch comes at a time when Africa is assuming far greater strategic importance to the U.S.

Id go further: whether youre talking about global terrorism, oil prices, the emergence of China, or any of the dozens of other current themes, and whether youre based in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world, you wont get a full picture if you leave Africa out.

And you cant cover Africa properly without looking at business and finance angles. Business is one of the defining features of the Africa site theres a lot more than youll find elsewhere, a point picked up by Rebecca Mackinnon at Global Voices.

The use of mapping as a navigational tool intrigued many, including Improprieties and well look at what more can be done to develop this. Mapping enthusiasts may be interested in what the Reuters Foundation AlertNet site has done to link news stories and the notion of humanitarian hotspots to interactive mapping.

Amy Gahran at the journalism site Poynter Online thinks weve missed a trick with not making RSS feeds available (shes right, and well look at that as soon as we can). Amy also thinks that, given the bandwidth issues, a mobile version would be good (ditto) but remember this site is not only Africa for Africans but also Africa for the rest of the world.

The aspect that has most interested commentators is the inclusion of related blogs at the country level. Annansi Chronicles welcomes the boost for African voices. And I hope we can live up to Dan Gilmors view that this is big, big news in journalism.

Dan is an advisor to the Global Voices network which powers the blog postings on the site. Were a Global Voices sponsor and Im looking forward to working closely with them and others to make sure the site delivers the very best in terms of the voices of African writers.

David Schlesinger is Reuters Editor-in-Chief

I went to an interesting session at Chatham House on Monday, where Harvards Professor Joseph Nye spoke on soft power in the information age.

Soft power is a concept Nye has theorized about that deals with ones ability to persuade and attract others to do what you want, rather than coerce them through the hard power of force.

At one point he bemoaned the fact that the news during his stay in London had been dominated by turkeys and not Turkey, referring to the blanket coverage in local media about an outbreak of H5N1 avian flu on a farm in rural England and a relative absence of foreign news.

His point was, I think, that in an information age people need good access to a wide smorgasbord of information from all over in order to make informed decisions. News reports that are dominated only by local stories dont give people the tools they need to operate in a globalizing world.

The balance of news that people want and that news providers give obviously changes by location and by the degree to which people are personally affected by a story. You cant force people to read something they just dont care about.

Without question, the spread of avian flu and its potential mutation is a global story and not just a local one the key is keeping it in context, and making sure that it isnt the only world story you report on!

Like any story, it needs the right balance of expertise, transparency of sourcing, accuracy, balance and insight.

In a world of soft power these are the things that separate journalism and information from propaganda and dogma.

David Schlesinger is Reuters Editor-in-Chief

We’re living in a world where readers expect a conversation and a high degree of interaction with their news providers. I’ve been pleased with the responses we’ve received to the various editors’ blogs we’ve posted. Most have been thoughtful and constructive. Many have posed new questions, and we’ve tried to respond.

As part of this new environment, various people and organizations often start organized email campaigns or coordinated responses to blogs about issues that concern them. Sometimes we get dozens of emails; sometimes hundreds.

Recently, one website — Honest Reporting — suggested its readers send in responses to my posting on photo standards to raise the issue of Reuters 2007 calendar. The calendar became a topic of discussion because one month’s photograph was of a Palestinian militant. That photo stood out as most of the others selected for other months were of dancers, swimmers, performers or farmers.

All the pictures in the calendar, selected by a group outside Editorial. were taken by Reuters photographers as part of the extensive and balanced file of photographs we send to subscribers around the world and publish on the Web.

The many comments we have received about the selection will certainly be taken into account the next time any company committee puts together a selection of images for a calendar or other purposes.

David Schlesinger is Reuters Editor-in-Chief

Last August, Reuters published and then withdrew two photographs from Lebanon that had been digitally altered.

At that time, we immediately terminated our relationship with the freelance photographer who took and altered the images and said wed share with the public the results of our internal investigations.

Experienced photo editors and other senior editorial staff went through thousands of images published during the Lebanon conflict. We are satisfied no other images were digitally altered.

We were not satisfied with the degree of oversight that we had that allowed these two images to slip through. We have tightened procedures, taken appropriate disciplinary action and appointed one of our most experienced editors to supervise photo operations in the Middle East.

Stephen Crisp started in this role this month; most recently he managed the transition to Reuters of our Action Images subsidiary. A British citizen, he has run pictures operations in Europe, Asia and globally while working for Reuters since 1985.

His predecessor in the Middle-East role was dismissed in the course of the investigation for his handling of the case.

We called together our senior photographers to strengthen our existing exacting guidelines on ethical issues in photography and wrote a new code of conduct for photographers, appended to this note.

We have restructured our pictures editing operation to ensure that senior editors deal with all potentially controversial photographs, and we have ensured that shift leaders are focusing solely on quality issues instead of doing editing themselves.

In addition, we have invested in additional training and supervision, particularly in the area of digital workflow, where we have engaged external experts.

Finally, we are working with industry leaders to see if there are technical means we can devise to better recognize possible fraud.

We are fully satisfied, as we conclude our extensive investigation, that it was unfortunate human error that led to the inadvertent publication of two rogue photographs.  There was absolutely no intention on Reuters part to mislead the public.

Our swift, strong response, however, both in the days immediately following and in the months since, has strengthened our commitment to our trust principles and our reputation as a respected global news provider which acts with integrity and transparency. We have shown that when mistakes are made we take responsibility and make changes.

Our enhanced guidelines and procedures are among the best in the industry. And I believe we are firm in our dedication to reporting the world truthfully, objectively and without bias, as we have done for more than 150 years.

A brief guide to Reuters values and standards

The use of Photoshop 

David Schlesinger is Reuters Editor-in-Chief

Every year at this season, the statistics come out about the number of journalists around the world who died for the story.

There are a couple of key organizations who make the count; their methodologies vary as do their figures, but the end result is clear: journalism can be a deadly profession, and 2006 proved the point.

The Brussels-based International News Safety Institute, of which Im a board member, on Tuesday called 2006 the worst year on record for news media casualties. It counted a total of 167 journalists and support staff who died trying to cover the news in 37 countries in 2006.

As an organization that focuses on safety, INSI counts all deaths, including accidents.

The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which Reuters also supports, said 55 journalists were killed in direct connection to their work in 2006, and it is investigating another 27 deaths to determine whether they were work-related. The CPJ, which focuses on press freedom issues, doesnt include accidental deaths or count support staff, which is why its numbers are lower than other tallies.

Both organizations detail each case they count on their websites (INSI, CPJ) the lists make sobering reading about brave men and women who died, mostly in their home countries.

Another important tally is by Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based NGO, which we reported on earlier this week.
Iraq is a very deadly conflict to cover, and particularly for local journalists.

Paul Holmes has written about conditions for our bureau in ‘Working for Reuters as an Iraqi in Baghdad and in answers to readers’ questions. We at Reuters were fortunate not to have casualties this year, but it is clear from the statistics that the chaotic conditions in Iraq have made it one of the deadliest conflicts for journalists ever.

For journalists to do their job properly, they must be neutral observers, whose role in bringing the truth to light is recognized and appreciated — by all sides. Unfortunately it is clear that in many countries that neutral status is neither recognized nor appreciated, and journalists can be murdered because of their work and to keep the truth from coming out.

Most of the work done by the local journalists around the world who are most at risk of being killed or threatened for their work will never be seen internationally; it will never hit www.reuters.com. It may not be about anything of importance to anyone outside a local area.

But it was important enough for a journalist to investigate, and important enough for someone to kill over it.

As we begin the new year of news, lets spare a thought for the journalists working to bring the stories out. Lets think about those who work for big international organizations like Reuters, but equally lets think about those who are risking their lives in their own countries for their own readers.

David Schlesinger is Reuters Editor-in-Chief

The UNs Jan Egeland bemoaned much world coverage of disasters as a lottery in a keynote speech at the 2006 Newsxchange conference in Turkey last week.

Some disasters get a lot of headlines; others get little attention. Sometimes its easy to guess why one story or another grabbed world attention; other times it is much harder to understand. Reuters AlertNet, the humanitarian news portal run by Reuters Foundation, has a World Press Tracker that follows how a sampling of the worlds press covers disasters and emergencies.

The Tsunami disaster of 2004 grabbed the headlines as it occurred suddenly and shockingly just after Christmas; it affected areas where many tourists had still and video cameras to record the destruction; it hit places well-known as tourist spots.

Emergencies that grind on rather than occurring in an instant or those that happen in areas off the well-travelled news routes have a much harder time making it onto front pages or into top-ten lists.

Thankfully, The Long Tail is a phenomenon that has applicability in news as well there are many places on the web where you can find detailed information about many of the lesser-known, but heart-rending and important disasters. One place to start is this index providing facts and news about many world crises.

So maybe Jan Egeland is half right it is a bit of a lottery to get on the front pages or into the top-10 lists of news stories. But in fact there is a lot of information out there; you just have to look. And you have to be interested.

Like so much in news, coverage of emergencies is both push and pull. News organizations can push the stories we think are important and interesting. But what is really important is for the audience to reach out and read what is important and interesting to it.

David Schlesinger is Reuters Global Managing Editor  

This weekend I participated in (another) debate about citizen journalism at the Battle of Ideas in London.

With journalism in something of a state of self-doubt (lack of trust from parts of the audience, future of newspapers in doubt, questions over the business model), it seems that a debate about the future interactions of professional journalists with citizen journalists is a feature of conferences everywhere.

In some ways, nothing has changed; in some ways, everything has changed.

In the early 1990s, when I was Reuters bureau chief in China and there was rioting and unrest in Tibet, I couldnt go. None of the reporters in my bureau could go we simply werent allowed in. So how did we report? We endlessly called the various guest hostels in Lhasa and interviewed travellers about what they had seen and experienced, and that became the basis for our articles.

Citizen journalists were on the scene and their reports were vivid and important. So has nothing changed?

Today, in a similar situation, those citizen journalists wouldnt have to talk with me to get their stories out. They could post their words on a blog, they could post pictures on flickr or their home video on youtube. So has everything changed?

The question for me is what role and what value the mediation I provided played.

I was able to triangulate the stories of several travellers. I was able to merge their stories with official pronouncements. I was able to put in context and background.

Done right, that adds a lot of value. Done wrong, that can get in the way.

Professional journalists have many things:

Access to newsmakers and events
Adherence to the codes, standards and traditions of the profession that help sift truth from fiction and keep facts as the basis of knowledge
The processes of editing and selection that produce a coherent narrative
Expertise
Distribution

Citizen journalists can have many of these qualities as well: what they must build is a track record of consistency. Professional journalists may have these qualities, but we cant be complacent: we have to compete with other professionals as well as with any expert or pontificator in range of a blog aggregator or search engine!

The key, I think, is in the value that attaches to brand

News brands, like Reuters, have a value based on a track record of adhering to our principles of accurate and unbiased reporting and of hiring experts in their fields.

What is fascinating is to see how individual citizen journalists and new websites start to build up their brands.

What will turn out to be the winning formula: Fact, analysis, opinion or emotion?

David Schlesinger is Reuters Global Managing Editor

Weve had reporters blogs on Reuters.com for some time; now we want to expand the concept to have regular musings from me and some of our other senior editors on the site.

The reason is simple: we want to encourage much more conversation between those of us who are writing, editing and planning Reuters global news coverage and those of you who are reading and using it.

We want you to understand more about who we are and what we think; we want to know more about whats on your mind.

Journalism today is about enabling and participating in a conversation. It no longer can be just a hierarchical transfer of information. What I as an editor think may be interesting and important; what will make us successful is if that intersects with what is attractive to YOU.

To make journalism relevant for the 21st century we must make sure we experiment boldly with different forms of writing and ways of interacting with our audience while never being cavalier about the importance of journalistic standards and processes. We must marry the intelligence of journalists with the wisdom of the crowds.

I think there will always be a future for journalism that disciplined search for facts and the weaving of a coherent narrative that helps people understand their world. The big question is whether there will be a future for journals, those institutions that until now have hired and paid people in my profession.

Will the best and most successful journalists be the free agents?

Most of Reuters.com will continue to be written, edited and produced by professionals. But from our partnership with Global Voices to interactive features like this posting and more, we want to reach out to the crowd that is our audience, and to tap some of the wisdom we know is there.

David Schlesinger is Reuters Global Managing Editor