Discovery

"Public Radio is in My Blood"

Associate Dean and Professor Al Stavitsky knows radio. He knows journalism. He knows teaching. He tapped into this knowledge to help National Public Radio develop an ethics guide for public broadcasting.

Independence and Integrity II: The Updated Ethics Guide for Public Radio Journalism was written and edited by Stavitsky and Jeffrey Dvorkin, ombudsman for National Public Radio, with funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The subject isn’t new to Stavitsky, who has a professional background in public and commercial radio and TV news and has written extensively about broadcast journalism and regulation. The 104-page guidebook, written after consultation with forty-five industry representatives, builds upon the original edition of the guidebook, Independence and Integrity: A Guidebook for Public Radio Journalism, written by Stavitsky and published in 1995.

“Al brought his energy and deep knowledge of the issues around ethical journalism to the task,” Dvorkin says. “The participants said afterward that it was one of the best collective and creative journalistic experiences they ever had. Al’s natural gifts as a teacher, lecturer, and mentor helped enormously. His sense of humor didn’t hurt, either.”

“Public radio is in my blood,” Stavitsky says. “So it’s extremely satisfying when my colleagues in the industry tell me my work has helped them.”