I am a big fan of freakonomics, both the book and the blog. However, I am having trouble following the point of Ian Aryes in the article he wrote today. Apparently in 2004 a bunch of newspapers adopted a rule that journalists had to explain the reason their sources were anonymous. He and others proceded to collect data based on this, and he felt the reasons for requesting anonymity were not good enough.
Nobody likes a snitch, but if someone snitches to me, its not my place to judge the feelings of the person being ratted out. That is reserved for those being snitched on. We have social conventions for dealing with this. As a reporter, if I am given information I shoujld report it unless I feel it is a matter of national security, uneccesserally destroying someones reputation, or something to that effect. However, I would use the same standards for reporting information that I revieced from sources I considered legitimate.
I'm really failing to see this as a case of taking the moral high ground. I really just failing to see this guys point.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment