PressEthic

My ethical dilemma took place in Washington D.C., where I spent the summer writing columns and an opinion blog on immigration politics and policy. One night I took my Moleskin notebook to a Cleveland Park bar to jot down plot notes about a novel I'm working on. A middle-aged business man, seeing my open notebook, approached to ask what I was writing about, and kept interrupting my work to insist that some young writer should profile his family.

"We've got tons of interesting stories," he said.

"Like what?" I replied.

He began to regale me with anecdotes about his father, his uncle and his cousins. They'd all been around Washington D.C. for a long time, running a successful chain in the local service industry, and as a newcomer still trying to get a handle on the city the stories provided some insights, so I kept listening.

"Shouldn't you be writing this down?" he asked at one point.

I told him his stories, though entertaining, didn't fall within my beat -- immigration politics and policy -- but that if he had any particularly funny anecdotes to share I'd jot them down, because a writer who freelances and writes fiction never knows when he might be able to fit something into a piece, or when a new idea for a piece might occur.

This man, quite lonely in my estimation, spent the next hour drinking whiskey and Cokes, telling amusing stories and trying to accomodate my transparent desire to better understand the Washington D.C. area. Gradually he became more drunk -- at one point I covertly gestured to the bartender that he shouldn't ask the man if he needs another -- until he kept talking about how nice a young fellow I was, and how I ought to come fishing sometime to meet his uncle, and how he remembered another story I might like.

I'd long since stopped taking notes when he told me a story that included an interesting detail rather ancillary to its plot: his uncle apparently routinely bribed a city official to influence parking regulations near a chain outlet. Of course, the man was quite drunk, and the allegation would have to be checked out before I considered it credible. But the offhand way he mentioned it made me think it was true, and I'd accumulated enough information in the course of the evening that I likely could've investigated.

On the other hand, I'm rather certain that the man never would've told me about the bribery but for two facts: 1) he was dead drunk; 2) while drinking with me at the bar he regarded me as a friend, not as a journalist, and certainly not as a journalist who writes about anything but immigration politics and policy.

I could've asked him more questions about the bribery, gotten reams of information, nailed down the story thereafter, and written it up as a freelance piece. Instead I decided taking advantage of the situation would breach an implicit trust that I knew the source felt, particularly due to his intoxication and because I'd intimated at one point that he wasn't a source at all.

Is a journalist always a journalist? Is there any such thing as off-duty? Does it matter if a story falls outside one's beat? Is there always a responsibility to investigate corruption? Does a journalist owe anything to a source who talks freely? Did I do the right thing?