Week 5: Student Response to Discussion 1

TuesdayApr 24 at 5:01pm

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JRN412 – Ethics and Journalism – Discussion 1 [Week 5]

Society of Professional Journalists

Ethics Case Studies – A Congressman’s Past

Troy Neal

The first amendment protects many different things, two of those things are our right to free speech, and it also protects the rights of the press. In this case study, “A Congressman’s Past,” both of these aspects to the first amendment come into play. To make a long story short, this case file talks about how a sitting congressman was accused of sexual assault some 28-years ago while in college, by an ex-girlfriend at the time. Their statements were taken yet the ex-girlfriend decided not to press charges when it happened, fast forward 28 years and the (Portland) Oregonian spent months trying to discover the truth about this persistent rumor. Neither the congressman, who would be seeking reelection, nor his ex-girlfriend and accuser wanted to bring it back up and discuss it since it was an incident that happened so far in the past, and even then, both parties chose to move on. The Oregonian decided to run the story anyway without concrete evidence or corroboration in which some of their readers did not approve and went as far as to end their subscription to the newspaper.

Just because you can does not mean you should, a phrase we have all heard and possibly have used a time or two in our lives. Yes, as a journalist it is our job to find the truth but not to create our own truth. If this were my story and I could not come up with concrete evidence, other than hearsay, then I would choose to move on from the story until the time came that one of the two parties wanted to voice their opinion and side of the story.

I believe that the journalist and the newspaper acted unethically here because they deliberately knew the repercussions that the story would bring and even though the evidence wasn’t concrete, in the eyes of the public, the congressman could be seen as guilty by association. Rumors have a way of ruining someone’s life whether it’s a high school student or a sitting congressman.