What’s the principled line between journalism and crime, if there is one that isn’t just opinion? Often journalists are not just protecting sources but guiding them or encouraging them. And those sources are sometimes committing crimes like leaking trade secrets or other confidential info.
Last July 8, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, a writer for Rolling Stone, telephoned Emily Renda, a rape survivor working on sexual assault issues as a staff member at the University of Virginia. Erdely said she was searching for a single, emblematic college rape case that would show “what it’s like to be on campus now … where not only is rape so prevalent but also that there’s this pervasive culture of sexual harassment/rape culture,” according to Erdely’s notes of the conversation"
This was one extreme case that was incredibly noteworthy (and not quite as sinister as you are implying, though definitely reckless and unethical). To act like this is bog standard is patently absurd.
I know it directly from first hand experience. And I liken it to jurisprudence on incitement to violence. Is incitement to theft also punishable? Does the motivation being journalism matter? Why or why not?
Journalists provide a valuable public service: publishing the truth. The position you’re advocating for is sullied up as “fuck the truth, bend the knee to the law.” Your opinion is incompatible with a free society.
Hold on, who said a journalist was inciting criminal activity? That is a completely different animal. Of course I am not saying that’s fine. That’s not even remotely what I’m talking about.
Thankfully, no. But from reading comments on the internet it seems like "look what you made me do" is considered a valid excuse by a large percentage of so called adults in the US.
