I wrote earlier this year about a journalism ethics roundtable discussion I observed on the UW campus. It was called to consider the new ethical challenges as new models of non-profit journalism are developed. Centers for investigative journalism are opening up to fill the gap made by decreased investment in investigative reporting in commercial media.

A follow up conference was held recently, also at UW, to share the findings of the roundtable group and explore other ethical challenges brought on by new media. A good summary of the conference is available here, so I'll just mention one anecdote that particularly struck me.

A presenter who is now an academic in Canada recounted how when he was at the BBC, reporters were basically encouraged to have no personality, so as to most objectively and dispassionately deliver the news. Then management wanted all the reporters to blog. This sort of set the reporters back in search of their suppressed personalities. And while expressing personal opinions on the news is not allowed, many of the reporters have enthusiastically taken to blogging. Many see it as a place for more detailed content, or side angles that couldn't fit into the final edited and broadcast story. Others use it to solicit story suggestions.

I wrote a few months back about the changes to what is now called the PBS Newshour. In addition to changing the name from "The Newshour with Jim Lehrer" the goal was to become an ongoing news source that integrated Web and broadcast content.

Well, some time has past, and this week I listened in on a "Webinar" given by the Newshour staff, specifically on how they have attempted to merge their Web and broadcast operations. The most significant step, as they saw it, was putting both groups in the same workspace. It used to be that the Web operation was in a separate building several blocks away. Now they are together in a large shared workspace. One you can see when new correspondent Hari Sreenivasan does updates on the program.

The value of this new approach was proven, according to the presenters, when news of the Ft. Hood shootings broke. While the broadcast staff started working the phones, they couldn't figure out what the online staff was up to. Thus the broadcasters were introduced to Twitter, which the Web people were using to try to find eyewitnesses and experts close to the scene.

Several of our organization's senior staff from radio, television and the Educational Communications Board were flown out to San Francisco by station KQED to learn more about their Quest project. This is a multimedia approach to science and environmental reporting that includes radio, TV, educators and community partners. They also emphasized that the first and most important step was gathering everyone in a single workspace.

Convergence was a big buzz word a few years ago to describe how all media was merging on the Web and other innovative technologies. But for many media outlets it really hasn't come together. To listen to the Newshour and Quest staff is to hear that proximity does not breed contempt, as the old saying goes, but collaboration.

I've never seen the National Geographic program called Border Wars but members of my family, who live in southern Arizona, tell me it's a very realistic representation of what's happening in their backyard, literally. I spent a week visiting them recently and got a first-person look at this conflict.

The U. S. Border Patrol flies helicopters back and forth all day. On the main highway, 3 miles from their home, all northbound cars must stop for inspection. While riding his mountain bike on a back road my brother-in-law was stopped by a Border Patrol officer. He was told to call the dispatch office if he saw anyone "suspicious".

As I understand it, the Border Wars program presents a variety of perspectives on the tensions surrounding what my family call "the undocumented". There are stories of the victimization by "coyotes", those who illegally transport and often rip off people desperate to get into the United States. There are also stories about the valiant attempts of the Border Patrol to prevent drugs and violent criminals from crossing into our country.

I haven't seen the program yet so I don't know if it presents a particular bias. I do know that Al Jazeera reported that:

'The total number of people killed while attempting to cross the border lies between 350 and 500 a year, depending on whether figures from the US and Mexican governments are used."

Many of these people die of thirst.

Border Wars will air a new program this Sunday, 3/7, at noon. It will feature a town on the border called Nogales, some 20 miles south of my family's home.

I don't know if this program is advocating for a different way to handle this growing problem. I do know it's needed.