Objectives
Trainees develop an awareness for ethically problematic decisions that can arise in reporting and editing the news. 

Duration
Line up: 30 – 45 minutes (minimum 10 min. per case) 

Preparation
Face-to-face: write the 3 questions on a flipchart, write the optional answers on cards (printed pictures for suggested case 2) and place  them on the floor/wall at opposite sides of an imaginary line in the room. 

Online: Prepare three frames for each case and sticky notes with the questions, draw a horizontal line in the middle on each of them, put the potential answers on sticky notes (upload pictures in case they are the choice options)  and place them at the end point of the horizontal lines.

Line up, 40 Min.
Trainees are shown 3 ethical dilemmas and asked how they would deal with them. Trainees can choose cases they find interesting. Some options include questions related to the role of journalist (active – activist), stereotypes or privacy (dignity and respect), or paying a source.  Here are some suggestions:

Case 1: You are an experienced environmental  journalist. Would you participate as a panelist in a public forum organized by an initiative to reduce pollution in a community while you are planning to produce a constructive story about the initiative’s response? 

Trainees can position themselves somewhere between Yes and No. 

The journalist should not be on the panel even though he or she is not paid by the organizing initiative and is not openly supporting its ideas. He or she would nevertheless be seen as no longer being independent. The journalist should take part as an observer. It would allow him or her to get deeper insights that could be useful for the story. 

Case 2: Imagine you work in a newsroom and get 2 pictures from the Iraq war, one shows victims of ISIS snipers, the other a child playing in ruins. Which one would you choose knowing that there will be a decision on an international action against ISIS the following day?

Case 3: Imagine you report constructively on a family in a rural area of Egypt. The man has lost his job in the pandemic, his wife has set up a street food bakery to feed the family. Would you cancel the production when the man fears negative reactions because traditionally he should be the breadwinner of the family? Yes or No. 

Everytime trainees have made their choice you “walk” around and ask some of them why they have chosen this position. You may select the only one who said “no” or someone placed in the middle. Positioning is a very effective method to make people talk and get into a vivid discussion. It might be difficult to keep to the timetable. If you feel the discussion is really fruitful it might be better to drop one case than to stifle the debate.  

Here are additional examples that could also be used for discussion: 

Example on stereotypes from The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News:
https://www.vox.com/news-watters-world-chinatown

Examples on hate speech, racism and xenophobic rhetoric in this report (see p. 22 from Bulgarian media and p. 41 from British media for example): 
https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/assets

Article that offers examples on Western-centric and colonial stereotypes: 
https://www.aljazeera.com/western-media-coverage-of-africa

Objectives
Trainees develop awareness of how stereotypes and biases can influence their reporting. They critically reflect on how to avoid this. 

Duration
Group work: 20 min.
Presentation and discussion: 10 min.
Input presentation: 10 min. 
Discussion: 20 min.

Preparation
Offline/Online: Prepare 3 frames/boards for each group and written task. 

Optional: Search for three videos with different ethical problem: one with stereotypes, one with a gender bias and one with an ethnocentristic/eurocentristic view.

   
Group work / Presentation and discussion, 30 min.
Divide trainees into 3 groups and ask them to answer the following questions:  

1. What biases have you encountered in the media of your country? 
2. What biases play a role in your work? 
3. What can you personally do in your work to not fall into the traps of these biases/stereotypes?

Optional: Show all of the trainees three videos, one with stereotypes, one with gender bias and one with ethnocentrist/eurocentrist view. Each group works on one of these videos and analyzes what is unethical about the video and proposes solutions on how to avoid this ethical weakness. 

The groups present their results and discuss them with all trainees. Together they reflect on where this comes from, why journalists do this and how stereotypes and biases could be avoided. 

 
Input / Discussion, 10 min.
Stereotypes and biases
 Presentation: PPT Roots-role-impact, slides 14-20