SIN & WIN

Dear college journalist: Want $500 in cash? Violate the entire SPJ Code of Ethics – if you can. It’s harder than it looks.

We want you to publish an entire issue of your newspaper, magazine, or webzine while striving to be as unethical as possible.

Here’s how it works…

• April 14-18 is SPJ Ethics Week.
• On and near April 1, many college newspapers love publishing parody issues – which usually suck. They’re riddled with inside jokes and weak satire.
• Instead, publish a SIN issue. Make up stuff entirely. The wilder the better. But run the SPJ Code of Ethics with a letter from the editor explaining what you’re doing.
• And what are you doing? Showing readers who think journalists are lying-terrorist-pedophile losers just what the world would look like if we had no ethics at all.
• On each page of your salaciously made-up stories, run a box listing the specific violations of the SPJ Code of Ethics.
• Challenge your readers to locate those violations on your very unethical page.
• We want you to be unethical, not illegal. So please feel free to contact us for a free pre-publication review from an attorney.

Enter and win

Once you publish your issue – in print or online – send it to us.

The best issue, as decided by the SPJ Ethics Committee, will receive $500. The Top 3 entries will be listed and linked on the SPJ website.

You don’t have to publish your SIN issue around April 1. You can do so earlier, but the submission deadline is April 10 at 11:59:59 pm Eastern time.

There are no other rules because, hell, being unethical is all about rule-breaking. But we know you might have questions, so feel free to ask us any at ethics@spj.org.