RTDNA Digital Ethics Workshop Live Chat

Our session is sponsored by:


The content is produced through a generous grant from:



For questions about the chat, please contact RTDNA’s Digital Media Editor, Ryan Murphy, at ryanm@rtdna.org

About the hosts:


Al Tompkins is The Poynter Institute’s Group Leader for Broadcasting and Online. More than 20,000 people a day read his online journalism story idea column “Al's Morning Meeting” on Poynter.org. Tompkins is the author of the new book Aim For The Heart: A Guide for TV Producers and Reporters, which is being used by more than 70 universities as their main broadcast writing textbook. He co-authored three editions of the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation’s “Newsroom Ethics” workbook.

During his two and a half decades as a journalist, Al has won The National Emmy, The Peabody Award (group award), the Japan Prize, The American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel for Court Reporting, seven National Headliner Awards, two Iris Awards and the Robert F. Kennedy Award for international reporting.


RTDNA Chairman Stacey Woelfel is an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism and the news director for KOMU-TV, the University of Missouri-owned NBC affiliate for central Missouri. The commercial station serves as the teaching laboratory for the Missouri School of Journalism. Students at KOMU-TV are the reporter, producers, writers, photographers, and editors of five daily newscasts that go head to head with competing newscasts in the market.

Woelfel is a member of the RTDNA's Executive Committee, and has served as the chair of the ethics committee, and a member of the convention planning and education committees. He also serves as a member of the board of governors of the Mid-America chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Woelfel is a winner of the Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism, the Emmy, the Edward R. Murrow and numerous regional and local awards. He is a frequent instructor in free media practices for journalists worldwide. Woelfel recently authored a chapter in Silenced: International Journalists Expose Media Censorship. He holds a doctorate in political science.