{"id":19360,"date":"2012-09-05T01:14:30","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T04:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=19360"},"modified":"2012-09-05T01:14:30","modified_gmt":"2012-09-05T04:14:30","slug":"media-ethics-questioned-after-atheists-fund-reporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/05\/media-ethics-questioned-after-atheists-fund-reporting\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Ethics Questioned after Atheists Fund Reporting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing at TheBlaze, Billy Hallowell raises questions about the ethics<\/a> of the Religion News Service (RNS) after he describes their decision to accept funding from an activist atheist — without publicly acknowledging they had done so.<\/p>\n

The Stiefel Freethought Foundation (SFF), a hub for the atheist movement, has given $65,000 [to the Religion News Service] over the past two years to help fund coverage of non-believers and the so-called \u201cfreethought\u201d movement. The organization, run by atheist millionaire Todd Stiefel…, has a very clear goal of organizing atheists, while spreading and advancing non-belief.
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\nUnder a section entitled \u201cAccomplishments in 2011,\u201d the [SFF] site reads, \u201cSFF donated $50,000 to Religion News Service to bolster its coverage of freethinkers with a series of news, investigations, feature stories and photos.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hallowell says “most” news organizations would find this relationships “suspect,” and questions if the donation might influence the tone of reporting:<\/p>\n

Taking money from a special interest group in the faith sphere causes one to wonder how rigorously \u2014 or honestly \u2014 the subject of atheism was explored.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If this sounds familiar, it should.\u00a0 Hallowell is referring to the issue raised here regarding the RNS reporting of Kimberly Winston, who has written veritable “press releases” for atheists.<\/a>\u00a0 These articles have included\u00a0stories on the atheist\u00a0counter-Christian\u00a0“Rock Beyond Belief” organized by atheist Army SGT Justin Griffith, which was\u00a0an event funded almost entirely by Stiefel — which means he conveniently funded both the event and <\/em>the positive press that accompanied it.<\/p>\n

For his part, Stiefel says he “plays no part” in the RNS reporting, though he admits to making suggestions of stories for them to cover.\u00a0 He is also “rarely” used as a source for reporting, which, ironically enough, amounts to an admission he has<\/em> been used as a source — seemingly for no other reason than he is a financial contributor.<\/p>\n

More troubling is the fact neither the RNS nor Winston ever disclosed this relationship in their reporting, something the RNS attributed to being busy:<\/p>\n

TheBlaze did explore how fervently RNS made Stiefel\u2019s funding known to readers. A search conducted on the organization\u2018s web site didn\u2019t show any notation that the $65,000 had been received by RNS. When asked about this, [RNS\u2019s editor-in-chief Kevin] Eckstrom said that, over the past year, the outlet has gone through a major evolution in moving from a for-profit to a non-profit model.
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\n\u201cWhen we were getting off the ground, it was an absolute chaotic mess. We were moving offices, changing computer systems,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was just sort of a gigantic whirlwind. I think this was one of the things that fell between the cracks \u2014 there was never a decision not to publicize.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This becomes troublesome because the RNS provides a wire service, meaning the articles are republished on other sites — again, without the attribution that the source article was funded by an activist atheist.<\/p>\n

Hallowell cites Kelly McBride of The Poynter Institute, “a journalism ethics organization,” who seemed to agree:<\/p>\n

While RNS isn\u2019t necessarily violating journalistic standards, on the transparency front, McBride notes that the outlet should probably be upfront that it\u2019s receiving funds from the SFF. She says \u201cit makes sense to be really transparent\u201d and to create a place on the news group\u2019s web site where its policies and funding information is available.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not entirely out of sorts for an activist organization to hire a PR person, or for a news organization to accept donations.\u00a0 In the very least, however, the groups should publicly acknowledge the existence of such a relationship, and leave it to the reader to decide if such a relationship colors the reporting.<\/p>\n

In the end, if you thought there was an uptick in positive stories on the atheist “movement,” you were right: After all, they paid for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing at TheBlaze, Billy Hallowell raises questions about the ethics of the Religion News Service (RNS) after he describes their decision to accept funding from an activist atheist — without publicly acknowledging they had done so. The Stiefel Freethought Foundation (SFF), a hub for the atheist movement, has given $65,000 [to the Religion News Service] over the past two years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20,3550,1055,3551,2034,3552,10,2035,171,1126,3079,3078],"class_list":["post-19360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-atheism","tag-billy-hallowell","tag-justin-griffith","tag-kelly-mcbride","tag-kimberly-winston","tag-poynter-institute","tag-religion","tag-religion-news-service","tag-religious-freedom","tag-rock-beyond-belief","tag-stiefel-freethought-foundation","tag-todd-stiefel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}