Each morning here at The Media Line we write a daily news focus and produce a variety of other written and electronic news items.
This morning (Tuesday) we received news that a soldier had been killed in The Gaza Strip. The news came to us unofficially before we had published our daily focus. But that put us in a difficult position. To publish or not to publish?
In Israel this has become a tragically daily debate. Minutes after a deadly attack against members of the Israel Defense Forces, border police, or police, journalists have to decide whether to let the world know of another terrorist atrocity before official confirmation of the act.
Security officials hold off releasing the information for a variety of reasons: to allow the family to be informed, to conclude any operations in the area and so on. The journalists are under instructions to wait, but it would be the easiest thing in the world for a reporter to break the embargo. Of course that is professionally, as well as morally, problematic, because the journalist knows they will be cold shouldered by the authorities in the event of future similar stories.
A journalist’s livelihood depends on their ability to get stories out first or show originality in their work. Those needs are often hampered in war situations. However, perhaps one refreshing side of the coverage of the Palestinian violence has been the journalists’ preparedness to observe the rules of the game, despite them not always serving the reporters’ short-term interests.