ABSTRACT
In Chapter 3, four key elements of ethical concern were identified: gathering the news; presenting the news; guaranteeing the quality of the news provided; and ensuring standards. These four will all be dealt with in depth over the next four chapters or so. The first of these are of direct concern to the reporter, however junior. There is a view driven by television and the movies, that ethical issues are only ever matters of major concern, to be discussed rarely and only when some major story is on the go, but the reverse is closer to the truth. Ethical issues arise every day, often concerning small questions. Even when there are major issues of ethical concern, they often start as small issues. I doubt, for instance, that Andrew Gilligan was aware of the ethical nightmare he was unleashing when he woke one morning to do a 6.07 two-way for the BBC’s Today programme. I’m not suggesting he would have necessarily behaved differently if he had, but it shows that from little acorns do great big ethical oaks grow. Some of the key decisions reporters need to make concern how they will gather information for their stories. This involves both the quality of the information and the method of obtaining it, including intrusion and truth, accuracy and objectivity dealt with in earlier chapters.
