Ethics: 9/11, The Falling Man, ect.

There's a fine line between showing readers the brutal truth of a situation so that they understand the powerful truth of any story, and showing readers a truth so brutal that readers ignore the point you were trying to make and instead question your judgment.

I can think of no better example of this than the so-called Falling man photo, taken by an Associated Press photographer during the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and published by The New York Times the next day.

This remarkable article from Esquire Magazine in 2003 offers a summation of the complex and contradictory forces at play in deciding if running the image was the absolute right thing or the incredibly wrong thing to do.

If you were an editor on Sept. 11, what would you have done? And why?

Likewise, what would you do if you were a photographer covering an African famine and you came across a starving girl being stalked by a vulture? That was a real-world decision for one photog, and it may have led to his own unfortunate end.

Finally, what would you do if you were the photographer who took this award-winning pic?

Let's talk it out.

Ethics: the 9/11 Falling Man, Ect.

There's a fine line between showing readers the brutal truth of a situation so that they understand the powerful truth of any story, and showing readers a truth so brutal that readers ignore the point you were trying to make and instead question your judgment.

I can think of no better example of this than the so-called Falling man photo, taken by an Associated Press photographer during the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and published by The New York Times the next day.

This remarkable article from Esquire Magazine in 2003 offers a summation of the complex and contradictory forces at play in deciding if running the image was the absolute right thing or the incredibly wrong thing to do.

If you were an editor on Sept. 11, what would you have done? And why?

Likewise, what would you do if you were a photographer covering an African famine and you came across a starving girl being stalked by a vulture? That was a real-world decision for one photog, and it may have led to his own unfortunate end.

Finally, what would you do if you were the photographer who took this award-winning pic?

Let's talk it out.

Ethics: the 9/11 Falling Man, Ect.

There's a fine line between showing readers the brutal truth of a situation so that they understand the powerful truth of any story, and showing readers a truth so brutal that readers ignore the point you were trying to make and instead question your judgment.

I can think of no better example of this than the so-called Falling man photo, taken by an Associated Press photographer during the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and published by The New York Times the next day.

This remarkable article from Esquire Magazine in 2003 offers a summation of the complex and contradictory forces at play in deciding if running the image was the absolute right thing or the incredibly wrong thing to do.

If you were an editor on Sept. 11, what would you have done? And why?

Likewise, what would you do if you were a photographer covering an African famine and you came across a starving girl being stalked by a vulture? That was a real-world decision for one photog, and it may have led to his own unfortunate end.

Finally, what would you do if you were the photographer who took this award-winning pic?

Let's talk it out.

JRN 200: Conflict of Interest = Loss of Job

This is what happens when you get pulled into a conflict of interest, via Gawker.com:

Wall Street Journal Fires Iraq Reporter Who Slept With White House Source

 

The Wall Street Journal announced today that reporter Gina Chon, who was revealed by recently leaked emails to have slept with a National Security Council Iraq expert while covering that country, has resigned.

That expert, Brett McGurk, is now Barack Obama's nominee to serve as ambassador to Iraq. According to email exchanges between McGurk and Chon leaked anonymously to Flickr earlier this month, the pair began a romantic relationship in 2008, while Chon was the paper's Iraq correspondent and McGurk was a special assistant to George W. Bush and an adviser to the NSC on Iraq. The emails make clear that Chon was relying on McGurk for information, guidance, and access while she was sleeping with him. McGurk, who married a woman named Caroline Wong in 2006, was reportedly still married at the time the affair began.

According to a statement released by the Journal, Chon resigned after acknowledging that she had violated the Dow Jones code of conduct by sharing unpublished stories with McGurk. That's right—a member of George W. Bush's National Security Council had secret access to the Wall Street Journal's unpublished stories. The statement doesn't say how often Chon fed stories to McGurk or which ones were made available to him.

At the same time, the Journal insists that Chon and McGurk's romance—which she did not disclose to her editors—had no effect on her reporting: "At this time the Journal has found no evidence that her coverage was tainted by her relationship with Mr. McGurk."

Last week, the paper said that Chon was preparing to take a previously planned leave of absence in light of the nomination of McGurk—whom she subsequently married—to the post in Iraq. It will be longer than planned. Here's the full statement:

Wall Street Journal reporter Gina Chon agreed to resign this afternoon after acknowledging that while based in Iraq she violated the Dow Jones Code of Conduct by sharing certain unpublished news articles with Brett McGurk, then a member of the U.S. National Security Council in Iraq.

In 2008 Ms. Chon entered into a personal relationship with Mr. McGurk, which she failed to disclose to her editor. At this time the Journal has found no evidence that her coverage was tainted by her relationship with Mr. McGurk.

Ms. Chon joined the Journal in 2005 in Detroit, followed by an assignment as Iraq correspondent in Baghdad from 2007 to 2009. She also reported for the Journal from Haiti in 2010 in the aftermath of the earthquake and has served as a M&A reporter for Money & Investing in New York since April 2010.

Ethics: The 9/11 Falling Man, Ect.

There's a fine line between showing readers the brutal truth of a situation so that they understand the powerful truth of any story, and showing readers a truth so brutal that readers ignore the point you were trying to make and instead question your judgment.

I can think of no better example of this than the so-called Falling man photo, taken by an Associated Press photographer during the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and published by The New York Times the next day.

This remarkable article from Esquire Magazine in 2003 offers a summation of the complex and contradictory forces at play in deciding if running the image was the absolute right thing or the incredibly wrong thing to do.

If you were an editor on Sept. 11, what would you have done? And why?

Likewise, what would you do if you were a photographer covering an African famine and you came across a starving girl being stalked by a vulture? That was a real-world decision for one photog, and it may have led to his own unfortunate end.

Let's talk it out.

Ethics -- What Would You Do?

There's a fine line between showing readers the brutal truth of a situation so that they understand the powerful truth of any story, and showing readers a truth so brutal that readers ignore the point you were trying to make and instead question your judgment.

I can think of no better example of this than the so-called Falling man photo, taken by an Associated Press photographer during the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and published by The New York Times the next day.

This remarkable article from Esquire Magazine in 2003 offers a summation of the complex and contradictory forces at play in deciding if running the image was the absolute right thing or the incredibly wrong thing to do.

If you were an editor on Sept. 11, what would you have done? And why?

Now, let's take you out of an editor's office and put you in the field. You come across this horrific scene: a starving Ethiopian girl, abandoned and alone and weak, who be being trailed by a vulture waiting for her to die. Journalists are supposed to stay out of the things they cover. But a life is almost certainly at stake. What do you do?

In this case, the photographer took the pic, then walked away. Was that the right thing? The wrong thing?

By the way, for this pic the photographer won a Pulitzer Prize. And probably at least partly because of this pic, he soon after committed suicide.

Ethics -- The Falling Man From 9/11

There's a fine line between showing readers the brutal truth of a situation so that they understand the powerful truth of any story, and showing readers a truth so brutal that readers ignore the point you were trying to make and instead question your judgment.

I can think of no better example of this than the so-called Falling man photo, taken by an Associated Press photographer during the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and published by The New York Times the next day.

This remarkable article from Esquire Magazine in 2003 offers a summation of the complex and contradictory forces at play in deciding if running the image was the absolute right thing or the incredibly wrong thing to do.

If you were an editor on Sept. 11, what would you have done? And why?

Let's talk it out.

Missing -- Ethical Dillema

I'm going to throw this one out to you: what was the ethical situation? And what did you do?

Let's talk this one through as a group. Impress me with your judgment, folks!

Ethics -- The Falling Man From 9/11

There's a fine line between showing readers the brutal truth of a situation so that they understand the powerful truth of any story, and showing readers a truth so brutal that readers ignore the point you were trying to make and instead question your judgment.

I can think of no better example of this than the so-called Falling man photo, taken by an Associated Press photographer during the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and published by The New York Times the next day.

This remarkable article from Esquire Magazine in 2003 offers a summation of the complex and contradictory forces at play in deciding if running the image was the absolute right thing or the incredibly wrong thing to do.

If you were an editor on Sept. 11, what would you have done? And why?

Let's talk it out.