Scenarios

You are working on the online news desk of a large media organisation. News breaks of fighting overseas. Raw footage arrives showing identifiable dead bodies. 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?

Try our right of reply scenario where you are the editor of a morning radio news and current affairs programme and just before the bulletin you receive conflicting information that is too late to fact-check.

You are about to publish an article about a local business which is offering a service for a paid-for subscription. Before you publish you are informed that a similar service is being offered by a community project which is totally free-of-charge. What do you do?

As one of the editors of a government radio news service in a developing democracy you receive information of an imminent threat of famine in a rural area of the country. But you fear that broadcasting the information could anger your employers. What do you do?

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.

You are a reporter covering a house fire where a traumatised woman talks to you on camera but after the interview you are made aware of the circumstances that could mean she didn't realise what she was saying. Do you use the interview?

In this scenario we discuss whether it is every justified for a journalist to trespass in order to gather information that helps the audience better understand the issue being covered.