PressEthic

One of the most important factors that makes journalists cheat is the difficulty to get information especially for international correspondents. And one of the reasons that makes the accessibility of information more difficult is that sources are not always cooperative with journalists. Some sources like government or army officials even use or deceive journalists.

Journalists should be careful and aware. they should not trust every one when they especially when they work in a foreign culture. You do not know what an agenda of a group of people or a political party is in an outside country. You shouldn't let officials use you as a journalist for their benefit or sometimes just to put media in an embarrassing position.

It happened that officials promised to provide journalists with important pieces of information, but they did not. During the war on Iraq in 2003 and in a press conference at the US Central Command's Media Center in Doha/Qatar, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks showed the attended journalists a deck of cards, consisted of the 55 most wanted members of Saddam's regime. They all asked him to make the cards available. He said he would provide them wit the cards after the press conference, but he did not. See the documentary, Control Room directed by Jehane Noujaim

In another case of misleading media, CNN was used when an army official, 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert, gave "misleading inofrmation" to a CNN reporter about an attack on the town of Falluja on Oct 14, 2004. Gilbert told the CNN reporter that miltary operation against insurgents was underway, but it actually happned three weeks later.

Don't you think that the CNN reporter should have verified what the military official said?

What I want to say is that there is always a kind of conflict between journalists and officials. Journalists win when they are more patient, more vigilant and aware to handle such cases.