Unique Stories May Benefit from Paying Sources

   By Zoie lambert

    zl963419@ohio.edu 

    In a perfect world, no one should take a bribe. Bribes show favoritism and erode any moral value a person may have. When you take or offer a bribe it shows that your values lie in self-interest. However, is there an opportunity for bribes to be not selfish deeds but selfless? Wikileaks proved in the journalism field that offering a bribe will benefit the public.  

    In 2015 WikiLeaks crowd-sourced "a $100,000 “bounty” on the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal." This was a big ethics problem in the eyes of many journalists. First, it conflicted with the ethical code of independence. We as journalists have to be influenced by the truth and nothing else. 

Logo of WikiLeaks a company that breaks or leaks classified information from anonymous sources.
 

    However, in this case, truth and public interest were the main motivations. The Trans-Pacific Partnership was a "backdoor" policy that was not revealed to the public but only to the government. As watchdogs of the government, it is important for us to let the public know what the government is up to and more importantly let the public have a debate or say in this legislation. 

    With the TPP legislation being kept a secret and heavily guarded Wikileaks asked for sources to leak any information involving the legislation and would pay them for it.  This situation according to Kelley McBride New York Times Opinion writer was a time "When It’s O.K. to Pay for a Story. She wrote an opinion article on this piece not agreeing that bribes should be acceptable in journalism but saying this certain situation permitted it. 

    Furthermore, I agree with her it is. In this unique case, the story was not published in the self-interest of the company but of the public. Although this did teeter the line of other journalism ethics like the accuracy of sources. They had to check the accuracy of sources who do not follow the journalistic value of truth. This is just one of few examples where journalists can offer bribes. 

     One situation when it is not okay to pay for a source is when the Bush administration was paying journalists to speak favorably about the administration. This bribe only served the columnist and the white house at that time. Of the three columnists that were paid to do this, Armstrong Williams was paid up to $200,410. These conservative columnists were told to speak favorably about white house initiatives like "no child left behind" and the "promotion of marriage". Being paid with tax-payer dollars this information was not disclosed to the public, unlike WikiLeaks. 

    Looking at the Wikileaks and George Bush situations, cases of bribing money are not cut and dry and still present ethical dilemmas. However, if journalists need to give money to sources it should not serve them but the public and thus it should be disclosed to them as well.