I think what the newspaper did was unethical and unconscionable. It ranks right up there with Janet Cooke’s fabrication of "Jimmy’s World in the Washington Post back in September 1980.
I agree completely with the statements in the story made by Michael Parks and Aly Colon.
Thoughts?
It doesn’t.
Sorry, link doesn’t work. Are you talking about this?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134678091_sherer18e.html
Actually, I don’t think it’s the same thing at all. The recent doctoring of an Iraqi battle photo by that guy from the LA Times, now that’s more like Cooke’s offense.
Nevertheless, this seems more than a bit short-sighted on the part of the newspaper involved. If I were a reader, I’d have to ask myself whether I could ever again believe any of its local news items.
For when the Times takes the page down and sticks it in the unaccessible archives. At El Kabong’s link.
It is not the job of the newspaper to help the police. For a newspaper to do willingly publish a falsehood, for any reason, violates the trust of all their readership, and is patently unethical.
I’d say that declaring it “patently unethical” is going a bit far. Yes, it is a generally acccepted principle that lying, especially by an organization such as a newspaper, is a bad thing. Nevertheless, there are other interests involved. While a journalist, qua journalist, certainly has a responibility to tell the truth, he or she also has a responsibility, qua a member of the community, to facillitate justice.
When two legitimate interests are mutually exclusive, as here, the actor should make a decision based on the specifics of the case at hand. I think we’d all agree that a newspaper should print (and quickly retract) a comparable falsehood if doing so would save thousands of lives. In the matter at hand, I don’t think either possible course of action (lying or not lying) would have been unreasonable (though I, personally, would not have run the story).
I wouldn’t agree to run the false story to save thousands of lives, as a student journalist. I can concieve of no situation where thousands of lives could only be saved by a newspaper destroying all of its journalistic integrity through the publication of a lie.
How difficult/expensive would it have been for the newspaper to print only one copy of an edition with the additional article? I mean the guy’s in prison - it’s not like he’s going to encounter undoctored editions lying on the bus. All they needed to do was create one fake which they send off to the guy in order to get him to spill the beans, and no-one else need know about it. The newspaper has helped the police, the public hasn’t been deceived and this bloke gets what he deserves.
Big, that would be doable, but probably fairly expensive, and hard to do quickly. I suppose you could just take one of the stories on the front page, and print one issue with that story replaced wit the one you want. But to run a web with a different front page for just one issue would be very time consuming and costly.
But far more ethical than the other option, and I could support that.
Your a dumb fucking cunt who deserves nothing but a fucking axe in the brain.
spectrum:
Really? It’s hard to come up with a likely situation, but a plausible, hypothetical one is easy to conceive of. Imagine a case similar to this one, only on a larger scale:
“Prisoner x has told cohort y (on the outside) to blow up an unknown apartment building. x will rescind the order if and only if he receives from his lawyer a copy of a newspaper story telling of bad act a.”
You could easily nitpick this scenario, but, in the end, there are still lots of plausible ways that telling lies in print could save lives. That they’re not very likely is irrelevant – it’s meant to be discussed merely as a hypothetical.
Right, but would you agree to run the false story, as a fellow human being? If they cost thousands of lives, your journalistic ethics would be insignificant to most people (especially the friends and family of those killed). (As an aside: what if it were millions, not thousands? Would you not print a temporary falsehood if you honestly believed, correctly or not, that it would prevent a holocaust?)
In the case being discussed, the community in general has an interest in an attempted murder being punished. A journalist (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, also the rest of the community) has an interest in not perpetuating a falsehood in print (even if only temporarily). My question is this: why does the journalist’s interest necessarily trump the community’s, which is what you seem to be saying?
Chaventh: I hope you enjoyed your time here at the SDMB.
I would also find it hard to imagine situation whereby a news atricle can save thousands of lives. But, it is not impossible.
Therefore, I can only find that attitude repugnant as well as ill-informed. If that is what you truly belive (the journalistic integrity is more important than one life, let alone thousands…), please go handcuff yourself to something far away from any populated area.
As far as I can see, if the Newspaper says something false with the purpose of saving lives, & especially if it is indeed successful, there has been NO ethical breach.
Your “ethics” are also failing to take into account that no one hates a hero, and the world loves a winner.
At least that’s how it is out here in the real world. I for one would take seriously a Paper that has proven itself to have a vested interest in the community of its readership that way.
But I guess I am weird like that…
Why? It’s not like they set up an entire fake section, filled with lies. It was a single seven-sentance story. One time. And they informed people the next day, I believe, that it was a fake story. They made it clear why they did it: to help the police. Not to deceive the readers. Now, if their intent had been to deceive their readers, I could understand your attitude, but under the circumstances that the article in question was published, I don’t see why it would be necessary to question the paper’s future integrity.
Yeah. Show him only that edition, or make sure only that edition gets into the prison, keep the guy away from the TV and internet for a couple of days, and it should still have worked.
I sure am glad that the newspaper has more respect for human life than some of you.
There’s no question I’d risk the integrity of my newspaper to save the lives of these children.
Apologies were made in a later issue. Everyone knows the truth. These children haven’t been mercilessly murdered as intended, and I’m sure very few readers give a damn if they were misinformed about one story for a short period of time, given the situation. I know I wouldn’t.
Actually, the Seattle Times doesn’t put things in unaccessible archives. (Or they haven’t yet.) Everything from the past 7 years is online - without registering.
I have no problem with it at all. It’s not like they were printing a lie to boost their sales or anything. How would you have felt if you were the editor and had decided not to go along with the plan and the boy and his grandmother had been murdered? Perhaps there is even grounds for a lawsuit had that happened?
I have no problem with the newspaper wanting to help prevent arson and murder. I myself would feel compelled to prevent such a thing, if I knew about it and could reasonably prevent it. None of this is at issue.
What is at issue is that the paper decided to knowingly print a false, entirely invented story, crafted specifically to deceive its readership. There was no need to do this - big_yellow_kingswood’s solution would work. It would be expensive, time consuming, and a logistical nightmae, but it would work - and after all, the important thing is that one wants to prevent arson and murder, correct?
Instead of doing that, they chose the cheaper and simpler alternative of lying to each and every one of the readers who pays them not to do so. That they felt they had good reason is not surprising - after all, everyone feels they have good reason for their ethical choices. What is damning here is that the “good reason” is economic. That’s a fairly weak justification - and if the paper will once print a knowing falsehood, with all the weight of its reputation behind it, with no more reason than that, there is every reason to believe the will do so again, for any number of reasons. I cannot call such behavior ethical, nor can I put any trust in a supposed reporter of facts that has even once done this. I’m amazed that anyone would defend them in this.
What grounds would there be for a lawsuit if the newspaper hadn’t printed the lie?
I’m truly shocked at the Dopers who find nothing wrong with the newspapers actions.
A newspaper is supposed to report the facts.
A newspaper is supposed to report the truth.
A newspaper is supposed to provide news analysis/commentary.
A newspaper is not supposed to knowingly disseminate patently false and untrue information, which the King County Journal most assuradly did.
Michael Parks said it best, "It was a lie… The newspaper deliberately told a falsehood, not just to the guy in the prison cell, but to all its readers. There’s no room in a news report for a false, made-up story. Parks said that to knowingly publish a false story “violates the canons of journalism.”
There have been cases where the government has requested that a newspaper surpress or not print a story, the Pentagon Papers, perhaps being the most famous case, but I can’t recall of government officials asking a newspaper to print a lie.
It’s a sad day for journalism and for ethics.