One day, I received a call from a reader who said he'd just watched a segment on ABC's "20/20" that focused on several New York pharmacies that were under federal investigation for allegedly collecting old prescription drugs and selling them to customers as new drugs. Why did this concern my newspaper? The answer was simple: because the same owner was the proprietor of a pharmacy in the town the publication served.
Although the Connecticut pharmacy was not under investigation, the "20/20" segment certainly did raise some interesting questions about what might be going on a few blocks from our newspaper office.
As a journalist and the newspaper's managing editor, I immediately asked myself "What duties do I have and to whom do I owe them?" Again, the answer was simple: I have a duty to our readers (one of whom had contacted the newspaper with a tip) to investigate the situation and report on the findings.
I summoned the newspaper's head reporter, a man at least 25 years my senior, to discuss the reader's concern and to assign him the story. It was clear by his initial response that his dedication to the story and desire to investigate and report it was, well, less than enthusiastic.
"You know _________ Pharmacy is a major advertiser, right?" he sighed.
Despite my initial internal impulse (which involved screaming and choking the reporter), I took a deep breath and calmly told him that didn't matter and I expected him to look into the situation and report on what he learned. We had a duty to, as highlighted in Chapter 1 of "Media Ethics: Issues & Cases," tell the truth.
He sighed again and shuffled out of the room. His body language previewed the story he would later file, even though he hadn't yet written a word.
A day or two later, I checked in with him on his progress and, unsurprisingly, was disappointed both in his product and his principles. He had barely worked on the story and spent most of our meeting discussing how uncomfortable he felt about writing it. "I'm sorry you feel that way," I told him, "but you need to have the story on my desk on deadline day."
When deadline day arrived, the senior reporter's work was what I will politely call "embarrassing." It was a poorly written story that clearly reflected his lack of commitment to undertaking any serious investigation. It also reflected his desire to appease the editor and the publisher, both of whom had a reputation for killing stories they thought would portray the town or its advertisers in a negative light.
I could understand the reporter's intent to please his (and my) bosses and his fears about losing his job (he had a family to support while I was still single), but I was angry about his actions and told him I'd be writing the story myself. While I didn't say it out loud, I knew this reporter's loyalty was to something other than the code of ethics journalists were bound to follow. Principles espoused by the Society of Professional Journalists such as "seek the truth and report" and "act independently" were being subjugated to the baser principle of self-preservation.
As I had expected, the editor told me the story would not run. The lawyer explained to me the concern the company had about a potential lawsuit.
"But couldn't anyone sue our newspaper for anything?" I queried. "If that's your concern, why do we print a newspaper at all?"
He stood silently, refusing to respond to my question. I walked out of the meeting, tired of tilting at journalistic windmills, at least for a day. By now, the staff knew the situation and had rallied behind the story, so I walked into the newsroom and told them it had been "spiked." I also told them I didn't support the editor's decision, but he was in charge and we'd all have to respect it.
Needless to say, the story never ran in our newspaper. About a month later, however, the daily newspaper that served our area ran a lengthy article about the federal investigation of the New York pharmacies, scooping our little publication.
I'm not sure if any lawsuits were ever filed against the daily newspaper for running the story, but I'm certain the pharmacy owner later "admitted to having been convicted of Criminal Diversion of Prescription Medications and Prescriptions in the Third Degree, a class E felony," according to New York State's "Summaries of Regents Actions On Professional Misconduct and Discipline."
As a journalist, I had a firm set of ethics to guide me on this issue, thanks to SPJ, but so did the reporter. How could he have reached a completely different decision from mine?
Many of my classmates will face ethical dilemmas in their future careers and look to the MACOMM program to prepare them. While no course will provide a definitive "how-to" on making choices, learning about everything from Aristotle's Golden Mean to John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism (and other philosophies) will provide guidelines from which a decision can be made.
In my example, I followed the ethical guidelines provided by SPJ and took what I still believe was the right action. While the actions of my editor upset and disappointed me for a long while, I eventually realized I had no control over the ethics of others, which was the most important decision I learned as a young journalist faced with a tough decision.
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