Every day, more than 115 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids, according to the National Institute (cq) on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes (cq) of Health. The death count includes those who abuse or are addicted to prescription painkillers, heroin and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. Such a serious social crisis generates serious journalism. In Ohio, there were 5,232 overdose deaths in the 12 months ending June 31, 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The opioid epidemic is not going away any time soon. But many media professionals, including student journalists and others, are unprepared to report responsibly on the causes and consequences of opioid abuse, addiction, treatment and death. The 14th annual Poynter KSU Media Ethics Workshop will address ethics issues involved in covering opioids at a day-long program on Thursday, Sept. 20 at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University. The Workshop – titled “Opioids: Ethics Emergency?” – will feature a keynote address by the three lead journalists from The Cincinnati Enquirer’s 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning project Seven Days of Heroin. Kelly McBride, the Poynter Institute’s vice president, and Al Tompkins, Poynter’s senior faculty member for broadcasting and online, will moderate and facilitate major parts of the program. MED chair Chad Painter also will participate. The Media Ethics Workshop will address other topics such as victim shaming, medical and non-medical responses, public relations tactics and more. New this year will be a best practices session focusing on how journalists and other media might approach addicts, experts, survivors, and how to determine what is new and newsworthy in an ongoing social crisis that now ensnares all demographics and law enforcement, legal, medical and social responses.

“Photo credit (above): Liz Dufour / Cincinnati Enquirer”

Jan Leach, Director of the Media Law Center for Ethics and Access, Associate Professor at Kent State / jleach1@kent.edu / 330-672-4289