Your ethical dilemma du jour, take three

[sigma7]

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.)

Comments

Everybody's Mission

[christinahauck.livejournal.com]

Ken, Ken, Ken.

Don't you know by now that everybody's mission is to serve the people who have the most money? Which is one of the reasons we've got a war in Iraq.

Re: Everybody's Mission

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just want to hear ABC's prized anchor admit to that on-air.

Though in lieu of that, his capital-gains passion was almost as amusing.