Should a Journalist Turn in His Pedophile Sources?

[Are_grits_groceries]

To say that pedophilia is a hot-button issue is an understatement. But in France, a new dose of controversy was added this week when a television exposé on cyber-predators ignited a debate over journalists' ethics in the era of hidden-camera reportage. While conducting research for a program called Pedophiles: The Predators, the most recent installment of the France 2 network's hidden-camera investigative series, Les Infiltrés, reporter Laurent Richard communicated with multiple alleged pedophiles online and in person — and then turned them in to the police.

But in betraying his sources — repugnant as they were — did Richard and his producers betray their profession?
<snip>
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1981057,00.html#ixzz0koRvoDsD

What a slippery slope. I probably would.

[arcadian]

1. As a journalist you are pretty much cutting your own throat when you do that.

Nobody will ever talk to you again.

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. I agree.

However, this one issue drives me nuts above almost all others. Molested kids become molesters themselves a lot of time.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. I think I would put that a little differently.

Molesters are much more likely than non-molesters to have histories of sexual & other types of abuse, but most survivors of molestation don't turn into molesters.

And while we're on the topic, I have a lot of trouble with the present fashion in sex offender treatment, in which the perps don't get individual therapy for their abuse histories. All they get is generic, group cog-behavioral treatment, with the dominant theme something like "You're not a victim; you're a PERPETRATOR! I think that if you treat the underlying victimhood, you will get a lot further in addressing the root causes of their perpetration.

[cliffordu]

4. Cutting the wrong throat, I'd say....

[aikoaiko]

5. There is no expectation of confidentiality with the press.

As I understand it, anything said to a member of the press by anyone is reportable.

The press is only bound ethically to keep a source confidential if they say they will and then only to the extent allowed by law.

[LuvNewcastle]

6. I'd probably turn them in, too.

I wouldn't be able to live with myself while those criminals continued to molest children.