While reading a compelling article in the New York Times about the U.N assasination report that implicates Syrian officials in the death of Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, I came across a paragraph that startled me a little:
A version of the report that was sent by e-mail to several news outlets contained, thanks to a computer glitch, some passages that had been removed from the official version. Those passages named other suspects and had apparently been edited out because the suspects had not yet been charged.
The article then goes on, blithely, to say:
They include President Assad's brother, Maher, and his brother-in-law, Gen. Asef Shawkat, the head of military intelligence and widely regarded as the second-most-powerful man in Syria.
Further on, bits of the edited passages are paraphrased.
I wonder at the ethics behind publishing names and bits of information that were apparently received by accident. If the suspects haven't yet been charged, is it really ethical for the Times to have published their names?
Christie Rizk @ October 23, 2005 - 5:11pm
I realize I have a huge bias when it comes to this issue, however, the only reason that the names weren't published is that the suspects haven't yet been charged - there doesn't seem to be much doubt, according to the investigators, that these people are, in fact, involved in the assassination. So as far as ethics, it might be a bit questionable, but not as bad as if they had, for example, published the names of innocent people. I personally would have done the same thing the NYTimes did.
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