ABSTRACT
Barbara Thill and the student journalists at The Statesman followed the three steps Carter says are essential for acting with integrity. They stood their ground in explaining their actions and the principles that compelled those actions. The student journalists tried to put the trend into context with a sidebar about a teenage couple from the school who were in a committed relationship. The student editors who took over the paper after McNamara and other staffers graduated did their best to produce the kind of work that their predecessors and Thill had championed. The editors and Thill recognized the sensitive nature of the stories and showed them to the chair of the English department, who ran the journalism program. The Society of Professional Journalists code says professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility. No matter where journalist's code takes them, their standards should start with a sense of personal and professional integrity.
