Ethical Decision Making

Scenario 1

You are interviewing a high government official about her involvement in a bribery scheme, when she is called out of her office. While alone, you notice some documents on her desk that appear to be related to your investigation.

Would you read them? Take them? Ask her
about them when she returns?

I would ask her about them when she returns, most likely. However, if it were a story that I was very passionate about and I felt like the government was keeping a bad secret from the American public I might take a peek at them, but it would have to be on a day that I am feeling extra brave and risky.
Also, it wouldn’t be the disrespect of personal privacy that would keep me away from looking at the papers. It would be fear of being caught snooping. I’m just being honest. I for sure wouldn’t just take them; that is plain stupid. She would ask where the hell her papers went, then I’d be caught, and screwed.
I am aware that it would be a breach of privacy, or illegal interception of classified documents, but I still say there would be a one percent chance I’d go for a quick glance. That means I’d have a one percent chance of serving jail time and would have to kiss my career goodbye.



Scenario 2

Conditions at a local nursing home are known to be substandard. It’s privately owned, and efforts to gain admittance or information have failed. Your editor asks you to get a job as an orderly and write a story based on your first-hand experiences.

Would you do it? Why or why not?

I would love to, unfortunately I wouldn’t want to do any undercover reporting that had to do with grubby situations. I would only go undercover for positive, or fun stories. Being an undercover reporter to uncover an individual’s or a company’s mistakes and incorrect activities is like going up to a police officer and punching them in the face; you’re just asking to be thrown in prison.


Scenario 3

You are writing a feature story and find some excellent quotes about your subject from another written source.

– May you use those quotes as if you
obtained them yourself, or must you
credit the other written source?
– What if you obtained the quotes from a
web site?

Of course I would cite the paper, magazine, or website I got it from. I would cite the author of the article or piece I took the quotes from. Even though it is nice to be the first to come up with a news story, I am very sure readers don’t subtract points from an article just for citing information from another article.
In fact, most news stories come from information from wire services or other newspapers or websites. So, there is nothing to be ashamed of about quoting another journalistic source.
Definitely, always, quote anything that you did not come up with, yourself.