Compliance with law and compliance with policy and procedure are relatively easy to establish. But compliance with ethics?
“Journal Reporter Fired Over Ethics,” The Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2017 A2. A foreign affairs reporter at The Wall Street Journal was fired for something related to “his dealings with an aviation tycoon whom he had cultivated as a source.” Further details weren’t provided. It may have been the offer from the tycoon of a share in one of his companies. Perhaps he wasn’t totally honest with the paper about something (but we don’t know what, yet). A violation of journalistic ethics?
All this may have been revealed following a hack of email or text messages, or both.
Seems a bit squishy without more details as to what were the ethics and what was the violation. Were I a reporter for the paper, I’d be curious what the lines were and how were they crossed. This perhaps goes beyond the common stricture of “Don’t lie, cheat, or steal.”
Were this a corporate exec or a governmental official, would we get more detail? Who checks the checkers?
infogovnuggets 