Silha Center ethics forum to focus on fake news

Who defines which news is “fake”?  How do ethical principles help the media detect and combat fake news? Can democracy survive fake news?  

These questions and others will be addressed at the 2017 Silha Center Spring Forum on April 24 at the University of Minnesota.

Making News or Faking News? Ethical Journalism in a Post-Truth Era will feature Joshua Gillin, a staff writer for PolitiFact, PunditFact and the Tampa Bay Times whose current assignment is to debunk fake news items and examine how they are spread online.  

The forum, sponsored by the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law and the Minnesota pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, is free and open to the public.  The event also coincides with SPJ’s National Ethics Week.  

When: 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 24.
Where: 130 Murphy Hall, 206 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota.

Gillin will be joined on the panel by Leila Brammer, a communications scholar at Gustavus Adolphus College; Sarah Bauer Jackson, program director at the Minnesota Newspaper Association; Ricardo Lopez, a political reporter at the Star Tribune; and Brian Lambert, who covered the media for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and MinnPost.  Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, will moderate the discussion.