COEUR d'ALENE - Marcia Franklin, a longtime producer and host at Idaho Public Television whose programs have won several regional Emmy awards and the George Foster Peabody Award, took some time Thursday to speak to journalism students at North Idaho College.

Franklin visited with the students prior to a downtown reception hosted by the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations. The group is featured in an Idaho Public Television special produced by Franklin, "The Color of Conscience: Human Rights in Idaho."

She spoke to the NIC students about journalism as a career - the challenges and expectations - and illustrated her points by sharing some of her own experiences.

Franklin first touched on the challenge of being objective, and its importance.

"Objectivity should be the goal ... My personal opinion is that the field of journalism is rapidly losing, or has lost, its objectivity in many areas," Franklin said.

She spoke about the danger of becoming too close to sources, and how it can affect objectivity. She pointed, as an example, to the New York Times reporter who "got pulled into the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. Stories by that reporter were later found to be inaccurate.

"I do think it takes compassion to be a journalist, and by that I mean you need to care," Franklin said.

That doesn't mean that a journalist is on the same side of every person he or she interviews, she said, but that "you have a heart."

Franklin spoke of her own experiences working on "The Color of Conscience."

The average documentary takes about seven years, she said. Franklin began working on "Color of Conscience" 10 years ago. It first aired on public television in May.

The film examines the past 30 years of the modern human rights movement in Idaho. It chronicles the efforts of local human rights activists who in 1981 founded the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations. Task force members responded to acts of violence by members of the Aryan Nations by paving the way for a 2002 civil lawsuit that resulted in the disbanding of the group's Hayden headquarters. Victims of a shooting committed by guards of the Aryan Nations compound were awarded a multi-million dollar settlement that bankrupted the group.

Following the verdict, philanthropist Gregg Carr purchased the property and the buildings were cleared from the land.

Franklin was there with cameras rolling when task force members walked on those grounds for the first time.

"We got this amazing footage," Franklin said. "I came back with this thought, 'This is the kernel of something bigger.'"

She said that at the time the Aryan Nations were active in North Idaho, "There were good people who did nothing, and also a lot of good people who did a lot, people who did extraordinary things."

Helen McFarland, a journalism student who lives in Coeur d'Alene, said she remembers that time.

"People didn't know what they could do," McFarland said. "They were disgusted and outraged. It was a little band of creeps, really."

Franklin said that while there has been a lot of progress in fighting racism and bigotry in Idaho, problems still exist, as they do in many places throughout the nation.

"I wanted to show that there really were a lot of good people in Idaho," Franklin said.

The one-hour film features human rights activists from throughout the state.