Chloe's dilemma

My ethical dilemma for the blog is:

In the early 1970s Les Kinsolving, the religion writer for The Examiner, wrote several articles about Peoples Temple (a cult in San Francisco led by Jim Jones who later took his people to South America and made his followers drink Kool-Aide laced with cyanide resulting in the death of 900 people) prior to the mass suicide he had written several articles that went unpublished. The Examiner was censoring due to government restraints and threats from the temple. Was it ethical for The Examiner to censor in order to protect themselves rather than the people who eventually died in the cult?

Check out the published and un-published reports from Kinsolving - http://jonestownapologistsalert.blogspot.com/2007/10/les-kinsolvings-original-exposes.html

A video was taken of 16-year-old Derrion Albert being beaten to death on a Chicago street. The video was taken by a person whose sister attended the same public school as Albert, but was not involved in the fight. Questions were raised when this said person contacted Chicago's WFLD-TV station to sell the video for cash. Was it "ok" to puchase the video which contained raw and gruesome footage? (see link of video below) WFLD-TV's vice president and news director on editorial process, Carol Fowler, asked why the "videographer" did not do anything to help the teen Albert but only film the fight? In the Poynter article Fowler discussed why she decided to air the video in the news (after providing the police with a copy of the video).

As a journalism ethics student do you agree with the station's purchasing the video ($250) and then airing? As a sidenote, when aired on the news a warning was put on before the video for its violence.

Poynter website: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2&aid=172085

Video and Fowler's article: http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/metro/reporters_notebook/derrion_albert_decision_carol_fowler

Laura's Ethical Dilemma

On the front page of a Sunday morning New England paper, three woman are shown shooting up heroine in a gazebo. The story is about the epidemic of heroine addiction in the peaceful town of Willamantic, New England. According to a report, reporter Tracy Fox and photographer Brad Clift earned the trust of these addicts after spending months in town. The photograph was part of a five part series. Critics are claiming the photograph was set up and the woman were paid to shoot up heroine in front of the cameras.

What do you think of the photograph? Do you find it offensive? Should the photograph be put on the front page? Does the fact the photograph takes place in a small town in a small town newspaper make the circumstances change rather than if it were on a more nationally known newspaper?

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=53&aid=10958

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina people took every measure in order to survive. The flooded streets signaled abandoned stores, full of whatever stock had not floated away. It was common for people to raid stores in search of food or anything else they could find. The Associated Press ran a few stories that featured photos of those who took from local grocery or corner stores. One photo featured a black male treading through the water with a plastic bag full of groceries; the other portrayed two white people, waist high in the flood water, carrying groceries as well. The two photos are almost identical and if you were to look at them you would assume both the white pair and the single black male are doing the exact same thing. Wrong. In the text attached to both photos the black male is allegedly “looting” while the white people have simply “found” these groceries. Apparently the photos came from two different news sources who captioned them differently. Regardless, should the AP have altered both captions? What are some of the ethical implications here? You can click on the picture to see the images up close.

Kevin's ethical dilemma

On Poynter, there is a link that tells about journalist Alysia Sofios, who let four members of a family traumatized by murder, abuse and incest into her home after she had done an initial story about them for Fox affiliate KMPH in California. She never told her news director about the arrangement.

After growing compassion for the criminal's (Marcus Wesson) relatives during her coverage of the story, she received a call from Wesson's wife asking for help. 8 months after Sofios let the Wessons into her home, Marcus Wesson went to trial and Sofios was asked to report on them again. Her boss asked whether she could cover the family objectively, and Sofios said she could.

Was this unethical of her? Should she have told her boss right away about the living arrangement? Is it even possible to cover a situation like this "objectively" if you were in Sofios' position?

EDIT - I realized I didn't link the article for more info. Sorry.

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=170213

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Michael Tomasky, an American editor-at-large for the UK Guardian recently posted this video on his blog:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/video/2009/sep/17/barack-obama-anti-christ-republicans

In the video he discusses a new poll of New Jersey democrats and republicans. According to the poll, an astoundingly high amount of republicans in New Jersey think that President Obama is the Antichrist, or aren't sure but speculate that he might be. According to the video, in the same poll a large percentage of democrats that that former President Bush had prior knowledge of September 11th. I have many questions about this poll and the choice to publicize it. How valid was the poll? How was it executed? Was it a fluke or can it be checked? Does Tomasky have an ethical obligation to tell us a little bit more about the poll before reporting on it? Should the report contain more information than just the statistics on a poll and editorializing? On a more fundamental level, what are the ethical ramifications of giving this poll so attention when there are so many other things happening in the world? Discuss.