ebrown_p wrote:woiyo wrote:
Freedom of the Press should be limited to the extent security is at risk.
This is the statement I most vehemently disagree with...
The First Amendment does not allow you to scream "FIRE" in a crowded movie theatre.
If your actions (Like publishing
UNCONFIRMED rumours about the destruction of a Koran) can have NO result other than to cause a violent reaction among those who might read the story, where is the 'upside'.
Why was it essential that we hear about this story RIGHT NOW, was there a time sensitive nature to the information? Was it too much to ask that the editor ask for confimation before going to press with this? Or was it part of the new 'journalistic' culture of publishing the flashy story as big and loud as you can and if it turns out to be incorrect, place your apology and retraction in 4 point type burried on page 60.
Journalists enjoy unprecedenced freedom to do as they wish, they frequently hold other professionals (Like doctors, politicians, etc) to inhuman standards and jump on small mistakes that these individuals make and scream from the mountaintop for their heads when those errors are made. Yet when one of their own makes one of the most elementary mistake straight out of Journalism 101, they are given a free ride and not held accountable for those actions.
I think that this writer and his editor need to be fired as a warning to other journalists that they WILL be held to a basic standard of conduct with no free passes for irresponsible actions.