Travis Butler stopped the presses and wrote, in responce to Zen...

differences would be that instead of acting in a devil-may-care blind
fury, Noriko's making a good-faith effort to act in a journalistic
fashion, and coming up with the wrong conclusions because the right
people aren't talking. Her main failure would be in succumbing to
temptation and printing something without all the facts, instead of
printing in a blind fury without care for the facts.

Zen thinks that too much is being read into "blind fury" here.  Bottom
line
is that Noriko is letting her emotions cloud her judgement.  Maybe a
little, maybe a lot.  It's that simple - the *results* are complex.  The
story has more punch when the REASONS for the code of Journalistic
Integrity are driven home with a little more force.  Whether from
ignorance
or malice, or some combination of the two, Noriko is gonna learn just
what
kind of damage an irresponsible news item can do.It's an object lesson.

True, and I think that's the strength of the story. I'd just like to see
it focus more on her inner demons -- It could be wrong, I'm afraid it's
wrong, but I can't resist the temptation to do it anyway -- instead of
her charging ahead without regard to the consequences.

   On the other hand, caught up in the heat of the moment, Noriko might
not _realize_ that she's violating the code. Perhaps when she's cooled
down you can have here realize what it is that she's done - but many
prefectly intelligent people do stupid, wrongheaded things and don't
realize it until it's pointed out to them. And temper is a wonderful way
to lose sight of ethics.
   Frankly, we also have to ask ourselves if a agonizing, Hamletesque
Noriko really fits the flavor of the fic. So far, it's been fairly fast
and witty, without a lot of moral debats or issues. Do we really want to
drag something as serious as a reporter's code of ethics into the fic?

so BE WARNED.  ZEN's opinions on this issue are JUST as biased as the

Professor's here, if not MORE so!  ^_^  (Zen just felt that needed tobe
said, in the spirit of Journalistic Integrity, after all.  It is a

DAMNED

difficult matter to maintain objectivity all the time, and Zen has
nothing
but the utmost respect for those reporters that manage to do it.)

Time to reveal more of my own biases. ^_^ I got in an argument with a
friend of mine a few weeks back about the old 'liberal bias' charge --
and aside from the fact that the stories weren't being reported to fit
*his* opinion, the only evidence he could offer was that a certain
percentage of reporters voted Democratic. I pointed out, first gently and
then with increasing force, that it shouldn't make a difference how they
voted -- that it's a reporter's *duty* to report the facts objectively,
and that a good reporter keeps his opinions out of his work. He tried to
claim that this was impossible; I pointed out that this was no different
than any other professionals (administrators, lawyers, doctors -- the
list goes on) who have to keep their personal opinions out of their work.
It's left me a little touchy on the subject; journalists are getting a
bum rap.

The "liberal media" charge greatly annoys me, mostly because people use it
to blame things on a already-slandered profession. Especially since the
charge is some patently ridiculous. If any of you have been following the
news, you'll have noticed that the "scandal" involving the Clinton
Campaign Manager has been getting much more attention than the Democratic
convention, and is in fact being overplayed and overblown. Does this sound
like the act of a liberal pawn?
   Many reporters are Democrats, and perhaps there are more of them than
Republicans. This makes no difference. If the media smells even a hint of
scandal, from _anyone_, they'll go after them like a school of piranhas.
In fact, this has been one of my worries about my profession - often,
we're too quick to jump at scandal for it's own sake, pursuing stories for
ratings instead of newsworthiness. The Boorda incident was a rather
direct example.

- Mike of No Particular Title or Handle
===/\=====+==================================================================
  /  \    l   Mike Loader - Lincolnite, Amberite, Illuminatus, Discordian,
 / () \   l      Journalist, Author, Traveler, Historian, Java Fiend.
/      \  l        Trier - LA - LV - Kiev - Reno - Hong Kong. Fnord.
--------  l                    mloader@scs.unr.edu
==========+==================================================================