ABSTRACT
Chapter 9: Dubious methods: This chapter begins with a discussion of the ethics of an Al Jazeera ‘sting’ which uncovered a push by executives of Australia’s right-wing One Nation political party to solicit a large donation from the powerful US gun lobby, the National Rifle Association. This is followed by discussion of a series of actions employed by journalists that could be classified as ‘dubious’, if not unethical. They include journalists going ‘under cover’ to get a story, phone hacking, plagiarism and fabrication. There’s also a section on the ethical dilemmas posed by potential conflicts of interest, like ‘freebies’, junkets and other compromising situations. Another section looks at the vexed question of chequebook journalism and poses the question: Is it a dubious practice, or the price of doing business? The chapter looks briefly at the history of chequebook journalism in Australia and details what the US, UK and Australian journalism codes of ethics have to say about the practice. The case study at the end of the chapter asks how far should a journalist go in helping police using as the example the Russian dissident who helped Ukrainian security forces by faking his death as part of a ‘sting’ operation in 2018.
