Writing Ethically

In New Mexico, a tribe banned a newspaper from its reservation because the newspaper ran a graphic article entailing the details of a tribal member's death.

This is relevant to our news-writing class because should the writer of the article disclosed the details of such a horrific manner?

I think the writer made a mistake by doing so. I don't know if any of you have had to go to a funeral home to plan the arrangements of a lost family member, but I have.

While there, you plan out what you'd like the obituary to say, which includes whether or not to include how the person died.

I know that some journalists view how a person died as hard news, but some events are probably hard to relive by reading about them later on.

Precautions should be taken to protect such outrage from occurring like the anger the tribe in New Mexico is feeling.

I feel the tribe has every right to ban the newspaper from their reservation because more than likely it's private property.

The writer shouldn't be fired though, but they should think about what they did to cause such disruption.

Feel free to agree or disagree. I'm open to comments.

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