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- Plagiarism. Never, ever, ever represent someone else’s work as your own. Never. Ever.
- Concealing conflicts of interest, real or perceived, in seeking or using information. If you have a stake in the outcome of what you are reporting on, you must acknowledge it and perhaps suggest that someone else cover the story.
- Distorting the content of news photos or video. Image enhancement for technical clarity is permissible, but any other type of manipulation must not happen.
- Eavesdropping. Listening in on others’ conversations, electronically or otherwise, is a form of information stealing and may invoke wiretapping laws or other legal sanctions.
- Breaking the “contract” with a source. Publicly identifying a source who provided information confidentially, for instance, is both an ethical and a legal violation. We will discuss the details of the source contract in the Research Skill: Interviewing on Interviewing.
These are a sample of the negative and positive obligations that help you weigh your decisions when a situation arises in your information gathering for a news message.
Ethical thinking requires that you establish for yourself, ahead of time, how you value these various obligations and which take precedence in your own scheme of decision-making. You also must be fully aware of how your media organization has ordered these priorities for their own publications, and comply with the standards that your organization has established.
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