Local provincial NDP candidate Romayne Smith Fullerton recently received the prestigious 2013 Press Freedom and Responsibility Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).
Smith Fullarton, a professor of journalism and media studies at Western University, along with her colleague Maggie Jones Patterson, a professor of journalism at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania were presented with the award at the AEJMC’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. in August.
During the past few years Smith Fullarton and Jones Patterson have been examining the ethics of crime reporting in Canada and other countries, which culminated in their research paper In the Shadow of Giants: The Ethics of Crime Reporting Rituals in Ireland & Canada.
The study involved in-depth interviews with journalists and scholars as well as a review of a sample of crime coverage in a number of countries including an examination of the code of ethics and accountability practices governing media in these countries.
They concluded that the self-governing, press council and ombudsmen model recently introduced in Ireland and practiced in Sweden and the Netherlands for decades may provide Canadian media with a self-governing model of ethics and accountability in journalism, rather than having such requirements imposed by governments or courts as has been examined in other countries.
The international association of journalism educators judged the research paper to be the most relevant to working professional reporters and editors among the submissions received for this year’s award.
The AEJMC is a non-profit, educational association of journalism and mass communication educators, students and media professionals. Its mission is to promote the highest possible standards for journalism and mass communication education, to cultivate the widest possible range of communication research, to encourage the implementation of a multi-cultural society in the classroom and curriculum, and to defend and maintain freedom of communication in an effort to achieve better professional practice and a better informed public.
“I believe the award speaks to the values of our candidate and our party, and that honesty and integrity can be a part of public life,” said Jack Verhulst, Perth-Wellington NDP Riding Association president.
