On Wednesday, Sept. 1st, Professor Reisner asked our class a very unexpected question. If you are covering a speech and the speech giver lies, and you have solid proof of this, would you publish his quote?
An example he gave was of a rabbi who at one point said, "I am a terrorist." Would you publish this very eye-catching quote although you knew it to be a false statement?
Although I consider myself a toddler in the journalism and media industry, I opine that the quote in fact should be published every time hands down. However, this can completely change the direction that your article was supposed to take originally.
There is a point I'm trying to get to. When I started working with the South Florida News Service at FIU, one of the students asked the director Chris Delboni if she could pursue a story about an elementary school basketball coach, who had won all types of championships and titles during her trajectory as an athlete. Problem was, she knew the woman and wasn't sure if this was a conflict of interest.
Delboni asked her one simple question that makes this dilemma simple to solve. "If you found out something negative about her, would you publish it?" The student immediately shook her head. "Then that's your answer right there," said Delboni.
So in retrospect, if you find out someone is lying and misleading the masses, I believe it's our job as reporters to expose these lies and provide truth. If you feel that you wouldn't be able to expose someone, then you know that you shouldn't be working on that story in the first place. Yes, you definitely will end up writing a completely different article than what you originally planned, but the principles instilled in us as journalists throughout the course of our education should be priority.
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