Famous Philosophers
This famous quote from Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is an excellent summary of utilitarianism.
What is: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one."?
In this 2022 celebrity courtroom case, two actors sued each other for defamation, leaving the question for the jury of who was telling the truth.
What is Depp v. Heard?
This Chicago Cubs fan caught a foul ball — and a whole lot of hell from sports fans — during a game at Wrigley Field.
A rational decision-making process between two moral choices.
What are ethics?
This foundational sentence — which is carved on the outside of Umphrey Lee — establishes freedom of the press in the United States.
What is the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
This newspaper editor is known for saying, "You furnish the pictures. I’ll furnish the war.”
Who is William Randolph Hearst?
This is the name of Prof. Scudder's new podcast.
What is "The Unforgotten: Unnatural Causes"?
This Greek philosopher believed that our perception of truth was like watching shadows on a cave wall.
Who is Plato?
This journalist sued her employer after they barred her from covering issues of sexual assault.
Who is Felicia Sonmez?
This golf-club salesperson was outed as trans by Grantland in a 2014 expose.
Who is "Dr. V"?
This umbrella term includes libel, which is written, and slander, which is spoken.
What is defamation?
This kind of journalism digs up information that otherwise would be hidden from public light.
What is watchdog journalism?
This early 20th-century newspaper editor doggedly covered the lynchings of Black men in the Jim Crow South.
Who is Ida B. Wells?
This fictional pirate captain tells us that codes, like a journalist's code of ethics, are "more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules."
Who is Capt. Hector Barbosa?
This philosopher is most associated with utilitarianism, and applied the concept to freedom of the press.
Who is John Stuart Mill?
This Supreme Court case involving two Planned Parenthood doctors established a constitutional right to privacy for private individuals.
What is Griswold v. Connecticut?
This podcast tried to track down a TV fitness coach, even though the subject no longer desired to be in the public eye.
What is Missing Richard Simmons?
This term, which refers to a kind of reporting popular in the early 20th century that did not strive for objective truth, comes from colorful ink that was used to print a comic strip in two New York papers.
What is yellow journalism?
Information shared with a journalist is assumed to be this, meaning it can be published.
What is on-the-record?
This young woman recorded the murder of George Floyd, which showed he did not suffer a "medical incident" as police initially said.
Who is Darnella Frazier?
This president's first job was as a radio play-by-play announcer, and learned the power of the camera as an actor in Hollywood.
Who is Ronald Reagan?
This Areopagitica author advocated for an end to government censorship of the press — as long as you agreed with his religious beliefs.
Who is John Milton?
This Supreme Court case involving a Southern sheriff established the actual malice standard for defamation cases against public officials and public figures.
What is The New York Times v. Sullivan?
What is Iraq?
This sales concept helps us visualize how news organizations can "convert" audience members into paying customers.
What is a conversion funnel?
This is a legal framework, not an ethical one, that establishes information that can be released by the government through open records laws.
What is the public's right to know?
This newspaper publisher believed journalists could be independent minded but opinionated.
Who is Horace Greeley.
These are the four main principles described in the Society for Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.
What are:
Seek Truth and Report It
Minimize Harm
Act Independently
Be Accountable and Transparent
This founding father wanted to include a written clause protecting freedom of the press in his draft of the U.S. Constitution.
Who is James Madison?
In this case, a grieving mother sued a newspaper for photographing the burned-out apartment where her daughter died.
What is Florida Publishing Co. v. Fletcher?
This set of documents was published by The New York Times and the Washington Post as part of the public's "need to know."
What are the Pentagon Papers?
This Enlightenment movement concept guides the ethical aims of most journalists' today, and means a rational, replicable and observable definition of truth.
What is objectivity?
These are the four questions used to determine if a statement is defamatory.
Was the statement published?
Was the plaintiff identified in the statement?
Did the statement harm the plaintiff's reputation?
Was the statement provably false?
Was the statement made with some level of fault or malice? (Only for public figures and public officials.)
A colonial American court found that newspaper publisher John Peter Zenger was this after he published true comments about the local governor.
What is not guilty?
This German craftsman brought movable type to Europe, but he did not invent it. Chinese printers had done so centuries earlier.
Who is Johannes Gutenberg?
This philosopher is a Deontologist, which means they are concerned with the categorial imperative.
Who is Immanuel Kant?
In this case, a woman sued after a newspaper photographed her escaping semi-nude from her estranged husband during a police standoff.
What is Cape Publications v. Bridges?
Journalist and abolitionist Horace Greeley created this character to point out hypocrisy with an objective approach to the issue of slavery during the Civil War.
What is "Mr. Facing-Both-Ways"?
This legal technique allows large corporations or powerful people to stifle protected speech, even if they know they'll likely lose a defamation suit.
What is a SLAPP suit?
(For an extra 100 points, what does SLAPP stand for?)
This is a transactional relationship between a news consumer and a news producer, where the consumer pays for access to a regularly published source.
What is a subscription model?
These reporters broke the Watergate story, which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Who are Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein?
According to a NiemanLab analysis, cities with robust newsrooms have more of these.
What are mayoral candidates?