ABSTRACT

This case study will evaluate if journalist, NBC reporter Luke Russert, was ethical in reporting a tweet. In the days after the Boston Marathon bombing a Reddit user posted a side-by-side image of the bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Sunil Tripathi; a 22-year-old college student who went missing a month before the bombing. This was followed by a Twitter user falsely claiming Sunil was named as a suspect by police, which some journalists reported as news. Using Sissela Bok’s model to evaluate whether it was ethical for journalists like Luke Russert and NBC to decide to use tweets as creditable sources in this case. Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative will be the philosophical principle used to break down the journalist’s ethical decision-making process. The study will also use the Society of Professional Journalist’s Code of Ethics as a tool on deciding whether Luke Russert was ethical in reporting a tweet. The case study’s final analysis will conclude with the answering of two questions:

1.) What should NBC have done before reporting the tweet as news?

2.) Would you report the tweet?