Erik Ugland

Minnesota News Council: Principles, Precedent, and Moral Authority

This study addresses the Minnesota News Councils moral authority-that is, its ability to serve as a referent for the ethical or moral choices of others-and how its authority might be affected by perceptions of its legitimacy. After analyzing all of the Councils 125 written determinations, we argue that the Councils legitimacy and authority could be enlarged by clearer statements of ethical principles, explicit expressions of standards of conduct, and more consistent references to past determinations.

The Legitimacy and Moral Authority of the National News Council (USA)

As an institution designed to resolve disputes between the public and the American news media and to assess the ethical standards of the mainstream media, the National News Council (1973-84) was, at least in the USA, a ground-breaking institution. This study suggests, however, that the Councils work was anything but revolutionary, and that it probably did more to entrench the received tenets of American journalism than to either validate or refashion them. By applying a conventional set of ethical standards in its resolution of disputes, by repeatedly emphasizing the First Amendment rights of the media respondents, by violating its by-laws and allowing the media members of the Council to dominate its membership, and by ruling in the vast majority of cases against the public complainants, the Councils work provides grist for those who might question its legitimacy and its value as a model of authentic press-public collaboration.

Newspaper Theft, Self-Preservation and the Dimensions of Censorship

One of the most common yet understudied means of suppressing free expression on college and university campuses is the theft of freely distributed student publications, particularly newspapers. This study examines news accounts of nearly 300 newspaper theft incidents at colleges and universities between 1995 and 2008 in order to identify the manifestations and consequences of this peculiar form of censorship, and to augment existing research on censorship and tolerance by looking, not at what people say about free expression, but at what they do when they have the power of censorship in their hands. Among the key findings is that men commit nearly 70% of newspaper thefts, which is inconsistent with much of the existing research on censorship and gender, and that those who censor college newspapers are far more concerned with their own self-preservation than with shaping public dialog on controversial social or political issues.