What would you think of me, the ProPublica editor responsible for newsroom standards, if I placed a bet on the baseball game I\u2019m currently listening to on the radio? Probably that I\u2019m doing something plenty of others do, and that my wallet will be lighter in a few innings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What would you think of me if I stood to make a tidy sum based on the outcome of a news event ProPublica has been covering? You\u2019d probably think that\u2019s downright shady, because isn\u2019t the job of a journalist to report the news and not make money off it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lest you think I\u2019m an ethically compromised editor, you can rest easy. According to a recent update to ProPublica\u2019s code of ethics<\/a>, \u201cno employee should wager on the outcome of news events on the prediction markets \u2014 regardless of whether or not they are involved in coverage of said event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ProPublica has always prohibited employees from profiting off inside information, so you may wonder why we amended our code of ethics to specifically single out prediction markets. We have not encountered any instances of this happening on our staff, but it has become harder and harder to deny the influence and reach of prediction markets beyond sports. In fact, deals between prediction markets and news organizations abound, such as Kalshi with CNN<\/a>, Fox News<\/a> and The Associated Press<\/a>, and Polymarket with Dow Jones<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But there have also been worrying examples of these markets at play. Look to the case of a U.S. soldier involved in the ouster of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from power in Venezuela who was said to have made over $400,000 by betting on the mission<\/a>. (He was charged with \u201cunlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction,\u201d according to the Department of Justice<\/a>, and has pleaded not guilty<\/a>.) Or to the political candidates who were accused of trying to make trades on their own races<\/a>. (All<\/a> three<\/a> received<\/a> fines from Kalshi ranging from about $540 to about $6,230 and were suspended from the platform for five years.) Or even to the journalist who detailed receiving threats from gamblers trying to get him to change his report on a missile impact in Israel<\/a>. (He didn\u2019t.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n At ProPublica, it felt imperative for us to establish professional boundaries in a world where a person can have a financial stake in almost anything. Our thinking was: If one of our employees has money riding on an outcome, can a reader be sure we\u2019re covering a story without bias?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We take your trust seriously and know that it is something to be earned and maintained. We\u2019ve always held ourselves to high standards. The code of ethics specifically exhorts our journalists to \u201cavoid any actions that could make a reasonable reader doubt their ability to report fairly or with neutrality on the subjects of their coverage.\u201d We know that even the appearance of us doing anything other than working in the public interest is troubling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When we began seeing instances of people making money off the outcome of news events<\/a>, one of our concerns was that readers might assume journalists were doing the same. Even gambling on news events that ProPublica would most likely not cover, like next year\u2019s presidential election in France, isn\u2019t a good look for a journalist. If someone on our staff is doing that, a reader might wonder if they are betting on something closer to home or to their field of expertise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, we also wanted to take care to not close the door on activities that don\u2019t pose such an existential reputational risk. A bunch of investigative journalists throwing a few dollars into an office sports pool will probably not have the public thinking we\u2019re incapable of being fair \u2014 although some of our team allegiances might make readers think we\u2019re gluttons for punishment. And putting a bit of money on a ballgame isn\u2019t a huge cause for alarm. So we took care to say that \u201cbetting on sporting events (like the Super Bowl or the Kentucky Derby) and taking part in small-stakes, friendly contests (like office pools on the Oscars) are permissible when legal and when employees are not involved in coverage of those events.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n (And even though our code of ethics allows us to bet on sporting events in these cases, I don\u2019t because I prefer to spend my money on cheap seats and stadium novelties<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other outlets are also tackling this issue. NPR recently issued guidance<\/a> that says \u201ceditorial employees are not allowed to use prediction markets or similar sites to place bets on developments of news events, or anything else we might cover, or on things NPR controls,\u201d including who will appear on upcoming Tiny Desk Concerts<\/a>. And the New York Times\u2019 standards editor said in a memo to staff<\/a> that \u201cbetting on the outcome of news events on the prediction markets is a violation of our principles and ethical guidance and is not permitted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond journalism, this has also gotten attention at the state and national levels. Places like Maryland<\/a> and New York<\/a> have put rules in place to prohibit state employees from using inside information to bet on prediction markets. And a number of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives have called for banning members of the chamber and their staff from gambling on <\/a>the platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our code of ethics isn\u2019t immutable, and down the road we may revisit this topic and further bolster our guidelines. Or we may tackle something that isn\u2019t even on our radar today. But we will always act with the reader in mind so you know you\u2019re getting the truth from people who are accountable only to you. You can bet on it. Actually, maybe don\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n The post Why We Changed Our Code of Ethics to Address Prediction Markets<\/a> appeared first on ProPublica<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n
\r\n
www.propublica.org Source link <\/a>\r\nProPublica’s editor for newsroom standards discusses the ethical implications of employees betting on prediction markets related to news events. Although no incidents occurred at ProPublica, recent updates to their code of ethics prohibit wagering on news events due to concerns about perceived bias and trust among readers. Instances of unethical behavior in prediction markets highlight the need for clear boundaries; hence, ProPublica maintains strict guidelines while allowing harmless activities like sports betting, as long as employees aren’t involved in the coverage. Other news organizations, like NPR and The New York Times, have implemented similar restrictions to uphold journalistic integrity.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What would you think of me, the ProPublica editor responsible for newsroom standards, if I placed a bet on the baseball game I\u2019m currently listening to on the radio? Probably that I\u2019m doing something plenty of others do, and that my wallet will be lighter in a few innings. What would you think of me if I stood to make…","protected":false},"author":590,"featured_media":2723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/590"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}