Comment on one of these ethical dilemmas
You are interviewing
· *
The longest surviving heart transplant patient
in the U.S. When talking about the disability pay he receives, he mentions he
does a little bookkeeping on the side the income from which he does not report.
· *
A beloved radio weatherman who is about to
retire and who mentions in passing he has a
Down’s Syndrome child and immediately says,
“Don’t print that.”
· *
The family of a teenager who has just died after
a long battle cancer whose mother says sorrowfully, “Noah died a virgin, and it
made him so sad.”
· *
A sex researcher who has done an extremely
popular book on various sexual matters who says – when you jokingly ask her who
should appear in the movie version – that it should be you.
· *
A family
living at a restaurant/motel in the middle of the Nevada desert, the
eight-year-old daughter of which tells you when her parents aren’t around that
on weekends dad likes to get drunk and blow up the wrecked cars out in back
of their isolated business.
· *
An interracial couple – she is Filipino and he
is African-American – who are having a June wedding. At the wedding reception,
his father tells you he is disappointed his son is marrying “outside the race.”
· *
A rather famous movie star who has just written
a rather New Ageish book in which she writes that whatever happens to people is
their own fault. You consider asking her about the six million Jews lost in the
Holocaust.
· *
A nun as part of a story about a neighborhood
that is undergoing a rash of burglaries. One of the buildings in the
neighborhood is a convent for nuns who work in the community as teachers and
social workers. After talking about precautions any sensible homeowner should
take, she pauses and then explains that she was raped some years ago and makes
some suggestions about how women might avoid situations in which that might
occur.
· *
Construction workers on a downtown highrise who
explain in some detail how they like to “party hearty,” with considerable
detail about how much alcohol this requires many nights after work.
What do you do?
3 comments:
Regarding the movie star writing the New Ageish book: I'd absolutely ask a question such as the Holocaust. Perhaps I wouldn't be totally blunt in my questioning, but it's something readers would want a reaction to. Reading a statement like "Whatever happens to you is your own fault," my immediate reaction is a reader would be "What about horrible acts of genocide?" I'd therefore want to get an answer or clarification from the interview subject. It's what the readers would expect.
As for the last scenario about construction workers, I would indeed report their alcohol use comments. There was a similar situation this summer when I was home in Washington when some members of the planning committee for the remodel of one of our major highway bridges into Seattle were caught day drinking on shift and had beer in their office fridge. Construction is a very important job and entails a lot of attention to detail and safety. Even if they only drink after clocking out, the amount they are mentioning could trickle into hangovers the next day or something of the sort. Their actions could affect the safety of others or put themselves in harm's way. This drinking, especially in respects to the employment of these workers, needs to be reported. Whether it be an accident during construction or after a possible mistake in planning results in a poor building structure, I'd print these comments.
For the father with the 8 year old daughter, i feel that that is something personal that should be kept within the family ad to give the family its privacy and respect. Also, coming from an 8 year old girl, the reporter should also check with sources, or to perform his own research to fact check.
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