Scenarios

Test your editorial awareness with our news scenarios, which are all based on real situations faced by journalists.

Transparency and full disclosure – scenario

Scenarios

Returning favours – scenario

Scenarios

Editorial impartiality – scenario

Privacy protection – scenario

Emotional pressure – scenario

Withholding information – scenario

Testing boundaries – scenario

Journalistic ethics – scenario

In this scenario a reporter feels ethically compromised after accepting hospitality from a developer who subsequently pressured them for favourable coverage.

Withholding information – scenario

In this scenario a journalist comes across information that changes the focus of a story the editor had asked them to write. Should they include it or withhold it.

Public interest – scenario

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

Emotional assumptions – scenario

In this scenario a journalist lets their own emotional assumptions colour their news judgement resulting in misinformation.

Legal threats – scenario

In this scenario a local newspaper reporter faces legal threats for a factual planning application report that lacked the applicant's demanded "positive spin."

Testing boundaries – scenario

In this scenario we look at a situation where an editor faces breaking protocol because of the strength of a story.

Transparency and full disclosure – scenario

In this scenario a reporter embedded with the military and closely monitored in a war zone wanders off and discovers a story the army wouldn't want him to tell.

Doorstepping – scenario

You are a local newspaper reporter sent out to doorstep a bereaved family but you lie to your news editor because you are reluctant to intrude on their grief.