(Credit: CIMEthics.org, screenshot)

The Center for International Media Ethics interviewed U.S. journalist Bill Kovach about his career for the center’s February 2012 newsletter.

Some of the topics in the center’s Q & A included sensationalism in the news and changes in the industry since Kovach became a journalist in 1956.  Kovach also discussed how he he handled ethical issues in his career.  He explained:

“When confronted with an ethical problem, I fell back on two rules: Is this information truly important for the public to know, and can I tell it in a way that allows me to explain what I did and how I did it? It was basically the same rule I always gave my children about their behavior: If you knew what you plan to do would be published on the front page of the newspaper, would you do it? If I couldn’t report and write a story that met that rule, I wouldn’t do it.”

See the whole Q & A here on the Center for International Media’s website.

In December 2010, we interviewed Kovach about his 2010 book Blur. See our Q & A and write-up here.