Reporting For Duty

1. You are a police reporter for a major city newspaper. A young man who seems credible tells you that he has been bashed by an off-duty police officer. He has witnesses and a medical report. A police officer tells you that no one will speak to you again if the newspaper runs anything, regardless of who writes it. The chief-of-staff says that if you do not write the story you will be removed from the round. What do you do?
I would publish the story. I would highly doubt the officer is right when he tells me no one will speak to me anymore. I would imagine people would be more likely to isolate the officer who brutally bashed somebody, than the person who reported it. Perhaps that is naïve but regardless I would rather stay on the round and be unpopular.

2. A distraught woman convicted of stealing a pair of stockings from a store approaches you after her court case and says that she will commit suicide if you publish anything. Your newspaper has a policy of publishing all such cases, but it will never know about this one unless you reveal it. You really believe the woman might be suicidal. What do you do? Why?
I would be very sceptical of the woman being suicidal, but seeing as the question tells me I’m not and I believe her, in that case I would not publish it. There is no way any article is more valuable than someone’s life, let alone a stocking theft story.

3. A very famous and very attractive personality gets hopelessly drunk at a party, causes chaos, and on the way home is picked up for drink-driving. You get a tip from a police contact and attend court where the personality is convicted of being three times over the limit, fined, and disqualified from driving. You are the only journalist in court. The personality later phones you and begs you not to write the story because it will ruin their career. They are so desperate they offer everything from sex to money and a free holiday if you do not report on the case. What will you do? Why?
It all brutal honesty, it would depend how much money they offered. If it meant more than the career pathways I could achieve through publishing this story, I would take the money. If not, I would publish the story.

4. Although it is against the law, a juror in a high-profile murder trial approaches you and says there will be a hung jury in the case because two jury members have accepted bribes of $100,000 each from two corrupt high-ranking police officers who have paid money on condition that the jurors do not return a guilty verdict. What will you do? Why?
I would report it. It’s not my fault the juror broke the law by revealing such information to me. It certainly has several of the news values as well.