Your ethical dilemma du jour, take three

Via Romenesko (spell-check suggests "Irksomeness" for "Romenesko"): Columbus Dispatch reporter Amy Saunders got on the last Skybus flight out of Port Columbus on April 4; she was the only passenger who knew the round-trip tickets would actually be one-way. The Dispatch agreed to an embargo, so "Saunders was told to keep quiet about the looming airline shutdown," writes editor Benjamin J. Marrison. "The nature of what we do sometimes means that we have information that we can't report until a certain time." || A reader protests: "You let us down by not informing us of what you knew."

And is the newspaper's mission to serve (a) itself, (b) the public interest, (c) the interest of those it reports on or (d) some impossibly vague synthesis? Me, I say (b), and I say they copped out and deserve a smack on the nose, at the very bleedin' least. (At least try to stay away from the appearance of impropriety by staying off the damn plane. Bad cowtown, no cookie.)

“Is Curley Leaving WaPo Co.?”

Rob Curley, the high priest of “hyperlocal” Web journalism, may soon be bolting from his job at the Washington Post Co.’s online publishing arm, according to sources close to the matter.

No. Really. Say it isn't so.