“Journalistic ethics” has become an oxymoron.

Let’s say you have irrefutable information that you KNOW will result in widespread rioting and violence and the death of innocent people. Mind you, I’m talking about IRREFUTABLE evidence, like in Rodney King/Reginald Denny video taped evidence, not just hearsay from a guard or third-hand gossip or a shady MS-Word document dated 1968.

Do you publish it, knowing that it will cause chaos, violence, and death?

Why?

Put another way, if your son/daughter was studying abroad at a Middle Eastern university or your spouse was a contractor in Iraq, would you still publish it? Did your answer change?

Now let’s suppose you’re a pansy-assed, bleeding heart Euro-organization supposedly concerned with helping the oppressed, but really dedicated to supporting the rights of criminals and terrorists. And you know that screeching about the alleged mistreatment of terrorists will cause bloody unrest in an already de-stabilized part of the world. Do you shut your pie hole and protect the innocents in the de-stabilized area? Or do you throw a match into that tinder box and basically incinerate everyone left there, innocent or not?