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As someone with journalism training, I find this argument compelling. If it was a case-study in a classroom setting, the answers would be difficult and the subj
by wycats 16y ago
As someone with journalism training, I find this argument compelling. If it was a case-study in a classroom setting, the answers would be difficult and the subject of much debate.
Choosing to "redact" private parts of a document without otherwise information important to the public is a perfectly reasonable position. While it is easy to say "how do we know it's just private information unless they release it", that sort of reasoning would force journalists to release all of the information they have about any topic, even when they clearly violate the professional ethics of journalists.
- anamax 16y ago> that sort of reasoning would force journalists to release all of the information they have about any topic, even when they clearly violate the professional ethics of journalists. Jouornalists don't get to say "professional ethics" - you they to explain why the relevant decisions are correct, and journalists don't get to decide what's correct. Example - it may violate "professional ethics" for a journalist to not reveal that US troops are walking into an ambush, but if certain journalists don't do exactly that ....
- cookiecaper 16y agoJournalists are entitled and indeed obligated to be bound to ethics just as much as the next guy. The argument that everyone is obliged to deliver to the public everything they know about everything, then we will get into problems very quickly. If you don't like someone's journalism, you are free to perform your own counter-journalism; investigate and publish your findings. There's no necessity that every journalist must publish everything they ever learn just because some guy says the journalist should. If that's how you feel journalists should behave, hire a bunch of journalists to behave that way, and perform your own journalism and do likewise.
- CopyrightTroll 16y agoCorrection: the journalists who uncover the information that other people are looking for are doing their job. The journalists who hide the information they find, for whatever reason, are not doing the job the customers of the paper are expecting. Journalists can do their job or not, that is correct. Ethics has nothing to do with it. You are thinking of 'fear' of exposing the truth, or 'revenge' for uncovering the truth. Journalists who cannot deal with the truth are bad journalists.
- anamax 16y ago> Journalists are entitled and indeed obligated to be bound to ethics just as much as the next guy. Yes, but when they're claiming privileges, as they frequently do, they don't get to decide the rules.
- spot 16y agoThen why didn't they print a story "our source is now running around pumping bull into the echo chamber"?