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Home / Chancellor's Global Issues Forum / A Journalist's First Responsibility: Professional Practice or Citizen's Duty?

A Journalist's First Responsibility: Professional Practice or Citizen's Duty?

Wednesday, April 12, 2006
3:30-5 p.m.
Ellis Auditorium

Listen to audio of the event (MP3)

Join MU Chancellor Brady J. Deaton as he moderates the seventh of a series of open forums on global topics of interest to the community. Professor Stuart Loory, the Lee Hills Chair in Free-Press Studies, will give a 30-minute lecture, leaving the remaining time for discussion with panelists and audience members.

There are times when a journalist's professional methods conflict with a citizen's responsibility. In wartime, does a correspondent help save a life or record the battle? Does a reporter give details of a crime committed to the prosecutor or save them for publication? If a news source is committing a crime by revealing information, does the reporter tell law enforcement officials who committed the crime or protect the anonymous source?

Stuart Loory

The Lee Hills Chair in Free-Press Studies was established by a generous gift from Lee and Tina Hills. Lee Hills said the goal in endowing the chair was to increase ordinary citizens' understanding of the value of free expression to democratic societies. The Chancellor's forums are free and open to the public.

The Panelists

Geneva Overholser
Professor and Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting

Richard Reuben
Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Missouri Center for the Study of Conflict, Law and the Media