Ethical Scenarios
*Respond to the following ethical scenarios in about 2 sentences.
1) A reporter encounters a source in a story on illegal drug use who maintains
that he will not talk on the record if his name is used. The source is a drug
dealer who has extensive knowledge about the local drug trade. What are the
ethical issues at stake here?
2) A colorful (full of curse words) source in a feature story is quoted extensively
using incorrect grammar and poor word choices. What are the ethical
dilemmas involved in editing this story?
3) A group of students are suspended in your school for a scheme involving
altering student grades. Your newspaper is writing an article about the
situation. Do you print the student names? Why or why not?
4) A reporter for your newspaper conducted a lengthy interview with a teacher
for a news article using a tape recorder to take notes. After the interview, the
student realized that the tape recorder did not work and that the quotes he
needed were not recorded. The student thinks he remembers the exact
wording that the teacher used regarding the important questions he asked.
Should he go with his memory? What are the ethical issues involved here?
What should the student do?
5) A local business buys a large advertisement regularly in your school
newspaper. Recently, the local business approached the paper and asked to
have a student reporter write a feature article about all the services that the
business offers to the community. What should be the newspaper’s
response?
6) In a story about abortion, a sophomore girl admits to having had an abortion
as a freshman. She is willing to go on the record, but you suspect it’s in part
because she wants to get back at her parents, with whom she does not get
along. Should you print her story or her name?
7) A teacher tells you something in an interview that she later asks you not to
print because of her concern that her comments will result in her perhaps
being fired from her job. She knows the comments were on the record.
Should you print her comments?
8) A reporter had learned, on the eve of the playoffs, that your championship
football team is involved in serious incidents of hazing during the pre-season
overnight football camp held on campus. Should you print the story?
9) For a story about teenage pregnancy, a teenage mother identifies the father,
who is still a student. He does not want his name in the story and is officially
denying paternity. Should you print his name?
10)You are assigned to cover the school board meeting but the board decides to
have a closed meeting to discuss the future of the high school principal. You
sit in the hallway outside the closed meeting room during the meeting and
you can hear the discussion. The board has decided to fire the principal. You
ask several board members about it after the meeting but no one will confirm
what you overheard. Deadline for the paper is the next day. Do you use the
information?
11) A house fire in your town kills one of your classmates and her 4-year-old
brother. The photographer of the student newspaper is at the scene and
takes a picture of the distraught mother being restrained by a firefighter. The
newspaper staff is divided about using the picture. Some think it is an
invasion of privacy. Would you use the picture?
12)There have been several bomb threats made at your school in the past few
weeks, but the school administration did not tell the students or the media.
You find out about the threats from a student whose father is a police officer.
You ask the principal about the threats. He confirms that there were a series
of threats, but he asks you not to publish the story. He argues that publishing
the story will encourage more bomb threats and be disruptive to classes. Do
you publish the story?
13)Your school newspaper writes an article about the debate team, which
includes several quotations critical of the debate coach. The reporter does
not interview the coach for the article. After the story is published, the debate
coach says it includes several errors and libelous material. She demands that
you print her 500-word response. What do you do?