In the article “The Death of A Soldier,” written by Stan Welch and published atthe Indiana University School of Journalism, the author runs into one of these ethical responsibilities. In the article, he is faced with a conundrum: a local man who went to war in Iraq died while overseas, and Welch is tasked to compose the man’s obituary. However, when speaking with the family he finds out that the man died not in combat, but after picking up a bomb (that did not explode) dropped by a friendly plane. The family does not want to expose this fact and asks Welch to keep it a secret. In respect with the families wishes, and against his better judgment journalistically, he keeps the facts to a bare minimum and reports only the date of death and a brief biographical entry. After he hadwritten his article, however, he finds out later that the family members had given direct quotes about the way the soldier had really died to other news stations and newspapers to be published after the soldier’s elaborate funeral. The journalist had been duped, and now had lost credibility in his reporting. He had been tricked; the family had not wanted him to publish the truth about their son’s death before he had been buried.

The ethical issue in question is whether or not to divulge the truth, even when the truth may prove to be something the general public might not want to hear. Of course, one would have to be compassionate towards the family, but realistically he did the wrong thing. The point of journalism is to report the truth, and to tell the public what is really happening in the community and the world. When journalists withhold the truth, alter the truth, or otherwise do not report the whole truth they lose their credibility and integrity. Regardless of the possibility of a negative response, Welch should have reported what his gut instinct told him to report: how the man had really died. People do not read the news for false stories and half-written articles: they read the news to get the facts, and this is not what Welch gave them.