I’m a new member and thought I would toss out an office ethics question that’s been troubling me. Say you’re editing a story and a supposedly experienced reporter has written that Turkey is an Arab country, and that India is, too. You fix it, of course, and since it’s your job to fix mistakes, you don’t stand up on your chair in the middle of the newsroom and announce it to the gathered throng. You just fix it and move on. But under what circumstances do you send a note to the reporter’s boss, pointing out that the supposedly experienced reporter thinks anyone swarthy is an Arab, and that if the reporter isn’t re-educated, he or she is likely to confuse Iran and Iraq next, thinking they’re just alternate spellings for the same place? Is it more ethical to fix it and shut up, or to complain to the reporter’s boss, or to gather string on the reporter so that you have a nine-count indictment before lodging a complaint?
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