Scenarios

An editorial integrity scenario where a journalist on a large salary faces the dilemma of whether to compromise their editorial integrity, become a whistleblower, or resign. What would you do?

Allegations are made about an incompetent medical surgeon and a subsequent cover up at a hospital. People have died. Your news editor asks you to investigate. The only problem is – the surgeon is your cousin. What do you do?

In this scenario you are a parliamentary reporter being put under pressure to cover a story by a politician who says they did you a favour in the past.

You are a political broadcast journalist and are invited to speak at public event where the organisers want you to explain the role of the journalist in covering elections. After the event they offer you a gift, and ask whether you would be prepared to do some media training for politicians. What do you do?

Scenario: You arrive at a border crossing and see a child sitting by the roadside crying. You think it's been abandoned and take a picture. You alert the newsdesk. But it transpires it's just lost its mother and stops crying when the mother arrives. What should you do?

This scenario looks at some of the issues that need to be considered when deciding whether a story is in the public interest.

What should a journalist do with off-the-record information? Should they agree to conditions on its use? Should they ignore any conditions and do the story anyway? Or should they use what they have been told as background information and dig further? Try our scenario and decide what you would do in the circumstances.

Try our editorial scenario in which a radio reporter hears supposedly conflicting information during an organised media trip, and has to decide which material best represents the facts for their news broadcast.