The Ethical Dilemma of When to Publish News

By Melissa C. Breau

2009, Vol. 1 No. 11

The Society of Professional Journalists publishes a code of ethics for journalists; among the rules listed is the journalist’s responsibility to seek the truth and report it and his responsibility to minimize harm (www.spj.org). These two ethical standards frequently come into conflict. When covering a story that will negatively impact the public it is often important for a news organization to break the story as quickly as possible. But they are also responsible for verifying the accuracy of each story so as not to misinform the public. When a paper fails to strike the proper balance between these two goals, not only does its reputation suffer, but often the person or organization falsely reported about also suffer in the public eye. News organizations have to balance their responsibility to do no harm to these individuals or organizations with the public’s right to know.

Earlier this month CNBC and Reuters reported that the US Chamber of Commerce had announced that it was throwing its support behind climate change legislation making its way through the US Senate. After denials were issued from the Chamber of Commerce both news organizations retracted the stories. According to Politico.com, “The Yes Men, a left-leaning activist group that often impersonates officials from organizations they oppose, took responsibility for the hoax.” The site also states that a Thomson Reuters spokesperson justified their failure to verify the story by saying, “Reuters has an obligation to its clients to publish news and information that could move financial markets, and this story had the potential to do that (Lerner and Calderone).”

Reuters obviously felt its responsibility to report on an issue that had potential to move markets was more important in this case than its responsibility to verify the press release. In retrospect, this was clearly a mistake. Not only was the information not important enough to justify the lapse, but if the Chamber of Commerce hadn’t immediately denied the piece and demanded its retraction, the Chamber would have been misrepresented. Since the information was not vital – it didn’t warn readers of a potential risk to themselves or their families – Reuters and CNBC should have taken the time to verify the information or should have reported the information as being unverified. Fortunately, in this case the story was caught almost immediately and the repercussions were minimal.

In other cases, failure to verify data can literally mean the difference between life and death. In May 2005 Newsweek Magazine published a story that claimed an American interrogator at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet. According to the Washington Post in a story published on May 17, 2005, “The May 1 item triggered violent protests [last week] in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and other countries, in which at least 16 people were killed.”...

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/45/the-ethical-dilemma-of-when-to-publish-news