October 24th.
1. You are a reporter and an important source invites you to dinner. The source says it is the only way you will get the information you need and insists on paying. Based on past practice, your newspaper will refuse to reimburse your costs. What do you do? Hmmm this is a hard one…. It is common for journalists to be constantly engaged in some form of social networking and this is not illegal. As Brown understands, it is legal but still unethical for a journalist to accept gifts from people they are writing about (Conley and Lamble 2006). If I I did indeed end up going to dinner with the source I would make it clear from the start that paying for my dinner would not automatically mean that I will write a favourable report for them nor would I refrain from reporting the facts.
2. While the travel editor was on sick leave, you took a two-week trip to spain, courtesy of a major airline. During the trip, the airline insisted that the resulting story be positive, and demanded the right to vet and change your copy, saying that an advertising contract depended upon it. It was the worst trip of you life. What do you do?
Tell the truth. Report the story how it really was. The AJA Code of Ethics supports the notion that journalists should not let the acceptance of a gift, such as a free holiday, undermine their accuracy, fairness or independence. I share this view and would express to the airline that it is wrong for them to threaten me in such a manner. The airline should have known from the begining that they cannot force me, as a journalist, to write a favourable story for them. I have no binding agreement to do so, that I am aware of, and would tell them if they want a nice story they should go spend the money with an advertising agency instead. The textbook says that the Sydney Morning Herald henceforth bans overseas trips paid for by third parties. This would save a lot of trouble!3.A reliable source tells you of an error in your story, which has been published in this morning’s paper. This means that you must notify the editor and compose a correction for publication. But the source is not concerned about the error and insists that this not be done. Instead they want you to write another small story, based on a new angle. Your admission of error will cost you a pay rise. What do you do?Hmmm once again another tricky question.I guess since the source did not want me to publish a retraction then I would consider writing another story from a different angle that contained the corrected information. Journalists are not technically obliged to print a retraction, correction or apology unless requested to.By writing the new story I am sufficiently acknowledging my mistake and am not necessarily in breach of the AJA Code of Ethics. As the Ethics Review Committee has noted, “Honest mistakes are not breaches. It is possible to be ethical and factually wrong” this information came from Conlet and Lamble.4.You are the court reporter on a major regional newspaper. A teenager convicted of a prostitution offence approaches you. She is beside herself with emotion and says that if you write the story her parents will disown her, her friends will shun her, and worst of all, her partner – who is terminally ill, who she is supporting financially and emotionally in the last days of his life, and who thinks she works in a bank – will not be able to handle finding out how she really earns her money. Your newspaper normally reports all such cases. What will you do? Why?
Gosh. Hard question again. This is hard because of the situation the girls has found herself in. Personally, I do not see the need to report her prostitution offence in a regional newspaper. Such a report could be devastating for the reputation of a young woman, and her family, living in a small region of Australia. I would discuss whether there is any public benefit to reporting this story with my editor. I doubt anyone would benefit from the reporting of this story.
Thoughts on chapter 16:
As a journalist i am going to have to make many decisions that may challenge my own personal ethical values. What a feel is right, what my boss thinks is right, what the sources fell is right, may all be completely different things. The words i write can have both bad or good effects on people, and so i feel that all journalist should use and choose their words very carefully. Also journalists should look at the bigger picture, some stories are just not worth causing people pain.
Below is a link to a ethics in Journalism website which goes through many ethical issues in journalism aswel as outlining some of the ethical lapses in the past year. Check it out!
http://www.spj.org/ethics.asp
