Good investigative journalists must have an abiding passion for finding the truth. They have the ethical duty to understand the motives of their sources, and understanding these motives is vital in any investigation. They should know how to distill accurate stories from masses of information, enable reluctant sources to talk and recognize assumptions, motives and biases. They should constantly exercise judgment in choosing what to report, whom to interview, whom not to trust, what to amplify, which data to omit, whether to run a story or ditch it if it affects individual lives, without serving public interest in any way. They shouldn’t be afraid of doing things differently from others, but it doesn’t mean they can break ethical rules doing so.
Read a discussion-cum-review on Absence of Malice, a 1981 film written by Kurt Luedtke and David Rayfiel and directed by Sydney Pollack. Somewhere in the movie is the pithy tagline that summarizes the story: “Suppose you picked up this morning’s newspaper and your life was a front page headline… And everything they said was accurate… But none of it was true.”
The movie focuses on journalistic impropriety and accountability, and how the lack of understanding ethical issues can wreak havoc on somebody’s life. The film raises many ethical questions. Is it ethical to reveal the identity of your source, especially when the source prohibits it?
