Did Columbia U. Journalism Students Cheat on Ethics Exam?
Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism is investigating whether some of its students cheated on the final examination in a course on, of all topics, ethics in journalism. According to today’s New York Times, the alleged cheating is all the more mysterious because the course, “Critical Issues in Journalism,” is graded on a pass/fail basis, and the exam was an open-book test administered online. Putting another irony in the fire, the professor in the course is a regular columnist for the Times, whose recent brush with an unethical journalist — Jayson Blair — has helped make ethics a hot topic at journalism schools. The Times article, which credits RadarOnline.com, a gossipy Web site, with first reporting the story, says that none of the 200 students in the required course have yet been accused of anything.
