LAT: L.A. Times Issues Ethics Guidelines

[DeepModem Mom]

L.A. Times Issues Ethics Guidelines
By James Rainey, Times Staff Writer


The Los Angeles Times has issued a set of ethical guidelines designed to encourage the newspaper's journalists to limit the unnecessary use of anonymous sources, avoid conflicts of interest and write in precise language.

The nine-page set of standards -- sent to reporters and editors at the newspaper this week -- comes not in the wake of a scandal, as at some other publications, but at a time when circulation and public trust in the press have led many papers to codify their standards....

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The Times guidelines (available on the newspaper's Web site at www.latimes.com) speak in broader terms and make fewer outright prohibitions than ethics standards issued recently by some other publications.

The standards say, for example, that anonymous sources can still be used, but only as a "last resort" to convey important information that cannot be delivered by other means.

Reporters are directed to try to be sure that sources have a compelling reason for keeping their identities secret....Although it does not reference the recent case in which Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper had his notes and e-mails turned over to a federal prosecutor, the directive warns Los Angeles Times reporters to be "extremely circumspect about how and where they store information that might identify an anonymous source."...


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-na-ethics15jul15,0,519646.story?coll=la-home-headlines