Spring 2007

Learning Ethics Of Journalism On the Job

Brian Erb was a photographer for the Oregon Daily Emerald in 1984 when a sniper shot and killed a former Olympic sprinter, wounded a UO wrestler, and then committed suicide in Autzen Stadium. Erb shot photos of the gruesome aftermath.

“I recall that all of us on the Emerald staff struggled with the decision of whether or not to run photos of one of the victims of the shooting,” says Erb ’85, now a San Francisco attorney. “We ended up running a less graphic picture than originally planned because we all ultimately concluded that the chosen picture told the story as well as the others and did not give the appearance that we were running pictures for their shock value.”

Erb says the ethical issues he considered as a college photojournalist and the writing and analytical skills he learned as a UO journalism major ultimately helped him in his law career. That’s why he decided to make a $100,000 gift to the Ethics Initiative of the Charles Snowden Program for Excellence in Journalism in the UO School of Journalism and Communication.

The funds will enhance the ethics component of the Snowden internship program, which offers paid summer internships at Oregon newspapers to journalism majors from colleges and universities throughout Oregon. During their internships, the students read and discuss ethics case studies selected by journalism faculty members. The internship program was started in 1998 with gifts from the family of the late Charles Snowden, a former editor at
The Oregon Journal and The Oregonian.

The ethics component, originally funded in part by a grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, was developed by journalism faculty members in 2005. It offers students an introduction to the ethical decisions they will make as journalists by using online training modules that include case studies, background information, and work sheets.

“Clearly, ethics is a fundamental component of the job of all journalists,” says Erb, a partner in the San Francisco law firm Ropes & Gray, where he specializes in corporate law. “I think ethics is a difficult subject to teach in a classroom setting. The Snowden Internship Program gives journalism students the opportunity to address and discuss real world ethical issues with professional journalists as part of their internship experience.”

INTERNSHIP SUPPORT “ALL IN THE FAMILY”

Early this year, the family of longtime Oregon and Washington newspaper publisher Walter Taylor, who died December 17, established a memorial fund to support the Snowden internships. Taylor was part owner with P. Lee Irwin of the Gresham Outlook, the Newport News Times, and other community newspapers in the 1960s and 1970s.

Taylor wasn’t an alumnus of the UO, but his three children, two daughters-in-law, and a granddaughter are all graduates of the UO School of Journalism and Communication. They are Susan Taylor Wehren ’68, Thomas C. Taylor ’69, Darlene Alvstad Taylor ’69, Andrew C. Taylor ’80, Junko Yajima Taylor ’81, and Sarah Wehren Kooiker ’98, who was a Snowden intern at The Springfield News.

“During his career, our father as an owner-publisher was a key player in community journalism in the state of Oregon and was a strong supporter of higher education,” son Thomas Taylor wrote in a letter about his family’s contribution to the memorial fund.