Chapter 12 - Legal and Ethical Considerations

In this chapter you will explore the legal and ethical problems that you may encounter when you launch, carry out and publish an investigation. Your story might depend on gaining access to government meetings or records. You must be aware of any state or federal laws that affect whether and how you can gather this information. You need to consider whether you will be subject to a subpoena, how you could protect your sources and how far you should go in doing so. You will become acquainted with the criteria the courts have used to determine libel and issues of privacy. And investigative editors will give you advice on ways to make your investigation airtight.

Note: Click tabs below to toggle content

Exercises

Consider what you would do in legal situations and research your state’s access laws

For each of the four possible scenarios for investigative stories that follow, decide on a method of investigation and explore the ethical or legal problems you might face. Ask yourself the following questions:

  • What are the benefits of carrying out the investigation and publishing a story?
  • What are the risks?
  • How can I minimize the risks to me and my organization and minimize harm to my sources or story subjects?
  1. Your university is planning on building a new recreation center and has hired a big company from out of the area to build it. A local contractor who lost out on the project told you the company the school hired had a history of using substandard material in its construction projects that makes the buildings unsafe.
  2. You overheard that the people who work in the maintenance department trade off sick days and overtime in a complicated schedule system in order to get overtime even though they worked only 40- hour weeks. It is allegedly costing the school more than $100,000 a year in wages.
  3. You suspect that freshmen in the athletic program are being steered to majors where the professors are known for easy As and are allowed to substitute easy courses for some difficult ones required of the rest of the freshman class.
  4. To find sources and background information for a story you are working on, you join a listserv, an e-mail discussion group in which people who are interested in the same topic post letters that are sent to all members. You learn through the listserv of the firing of a company official because of some scandal that occurred within the company. One of the e-mails that you receive as a member of the listserv appears to be a smoking gun document.

Research your state’s open access and public records laws and answer the questions in Box 12.1. Then sit in on a court session, attend a public meeting or ask for public records.

Big Story Steps

Writing the second draft and checking ethical issues

  1. 12.1 Write a second draft of your story with a focus on clarity.
    1. Eliminate what’s not essential.
    2. Add back information needed for reader comprehension.
    3. Bring the story down to scale.
    4. Set up a structure.
  2. 12.2 Either individually or as a group, reexamine the methods you used to gather information in your project. What legal or ethical problems, including issues involving access and privacy, did you encounter?
  3. 12.3 If your story has geographic elements, create a mashup map (see the discussion in Chapter 9).