#35 The ethics of reporting on your own newsroom with the 2019 Ancil Payne Award Winners

Demystifying Media at the University of Oregon

About Our Guest:
Each year, the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication recognizes the tough, ethical decisions made in the newsroom and in the field—decisions that make a difference in the community but are often invisible to the public. The Ancil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism presents a $10,000 annual prize to a media organization or journalist who reports with integrity despite personal, political, or economic pressure in honor of Seattle broadcasting legend, Ancil Payne.

During their interview, Yuen and Sepic discuss what it was like to report on their newsroom’s coverage of the fall from grace of one of its network’s biggest stars--Garrison Keillor, producer and host of "A Prairie Home Companion"--after he was accused of inappropriate behavior at the height of the #MeToo movement.

Find Matt Sepic online:
Twitter

Find Lauren Yuen online:
Twitter
Show Notes
1:16 - How the investigation came about
6:41 - How Garrison Keillor's retirement impacted the team's reporting on the story
13:23 - How the team avoided being scooped by the competition
16:12 - Timeline for the reporting and findings from the internal investigation
23:18 - How MPR reacted to the story
24:40 - Lessons and takeaways for other newsrooms reporting on themselves
27:25 - What the Payne Award means to Lauren and Matt

Read the transcript for this episode

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