Journalist Ethics

"Okay, I'll deal with it tomorrow..."

"Not tomorrow, today. The matter is for yesterday."

"Have mercy, girl. I just got off work! Do you know what time it is?"

"And you want to bite the topic of the century with me?"

Agnieszka was sure that Przemek had let himself be caught. The man was more ambitious than she was. He may not have had as light a pen as she did, and he certainly didn't have her lightness in spoken language, but when it came to finding information and making contacts, he was a master. In the phrase 'investigative journalist' she was a journalist and he was an investigator.

It was just a shame that Przemek still thought he had the makings of a good reporter.

"Kwiecień?" he asked in a clearly animated voice. "Did you find anything?"

"Probably," she replied coquettishly. Przemek had already seen the bait, now he must politely swallow it and get on the hook. "I talked to someone who saw him at the police station the other day."

"The cops won't let off steam," doubted Przemek. "I know, because even my buddy clamped his mouth shut. Some of the media got too far up their asses."

"But the cops aren't the only ones at the station."

"You mean you talked to some detainee?"

"Who knows! Look, there's really something to make a story out of here. If you help me, we'll be co-authors."

On Agnieszka Madera's part, it was only a partial sacrifice. She was a young journalist with talent, but also enough self-criticism to understand that in this investigation she would need a skill set she didn't have.

"Agreed," Przemek announced. "What do you need?"

"Can you trace Adam Lechoń's card payment transaction history?"

"Agnieszka..." there was disapproval in Przemek's voice.

Banking information such as card statements or anything else was classified and if someone without authority tried to find out, they were seriously breaking the law.

"I know, I know, but I need to find it. You don't even know how important this could be."

"Then why don't you tell me?"

Agnieszka hesitated. She needed Przemek's help, wanted to include him, but how much could she trust him? She wondered about that as she hurried out into the street and looked around for a cab.

"Why did Lechoń sink to the ground?" she asked hailing a cab with her free hand. "Haven't you thought about it?"

"I think we all have similar suspicions."

The cab stopped and the journalist, without interrupting her conversation with her colleague, gave her address.

"I have a witness who gives me evidence," she says.

"Then why aren't you writing the article yet?"

Madera tightened her grip. She had graduated quite recently to still remember professional ethics. She felt pain at the thought that ethics could be forgotten so easily and so quickly in search of quick fame.

But that was not the domain of her profession alone. In every profession there was some set of ethical principles that were necessary for that occupational group to function well and to enjoy public recognition. It didn't matter if you were a doctor or a garbage collector, a journalist or a driver, you were allowed to do some things and not others.

Madeira felt that although her profession may not be as respected and responsible as that of a policeman or a doctor, but what a journalist did had a huge impact on society and how it perceived reality. The right choice of words can, in the eyes of the public, completely change the event presented... or the person.

Unfortunately, many journalists and, above all, people who appear on the Internet and call themselves 'editors' have forgotten their duty of objectivity and accuracy in presenting facts and have caused a lot of misery for innocent people.

Agnieszka Madera was still at university when she heard about a foreign case in which the so-called 'media' published a girl's accusation against a famous idol on the Internet. Under the influence of the public flurry, the idol's career was completely crushed and he was in prison for two years on heavy charges. It was only after two years that it was revealed that everything was consensual and the girl took money from a rival agency than the one where the idol worked to defame him.

The boy was destroyed professionally and psychologically. Even an acquittal did not allow him to return to work. The fans didn't abandon him, at least not all of them, but the 'media' didn't stop claiming that since he was indicted, who knows what else to expect from him? Maybe this girl didn't take money for lying from a rival agency, but from his lawyer?

It was from this experience that Madera vowed to herself to always be a fair and honest journalist and never publish an article or do a report for television if she didn't have the evidence and the other side's point of view.

"I want to hear what Lechoń has to say first. That's why I need to find him."

"After all, you have a witness..."

"A witness is not enough. The witness is guided by his own subjective interpretation," she reminded. "You know yourself that where there are three witnesses, there are four different versions of the event."

"Okay already, okay. I'll do it, but it's going to take a while."

"How long?"

"A day. Two."

"Isn't there any way to speed it up...?"

"Give a girl a finger and she'll want the whole hand! No, there isn't. Be glad I want to deal with this at all. Don't forget, this case belongs to both of us now."

"Of course. Thank you."

She really was grateful to him. She was very anxious to do an honest piece of work, something quite different from what her colleagues had done a year ago in Kwiecień's. Agnieszka could not help feeling that they were largely to blame for the murderer going free.

Journalists at the time portrayed Kwiecień as the devil incarnate. They made a press campaign against him. They did not verify the facts, they just repeated rumors invented by someone else.

Adam Lechoń refuted each of these rumors with an argument and evidence making a large part of public opinion stop believing both the media and the accusation. If one piece of information turned out to be a lie, then another, another, and so on, how could they believe in the truthfulness of the others.

Lechoń did not have to manipulate the media and the truth in order to convince the public of Wojciech Kwiecień's innocence. He only proved that it was others who had previously manipulated the truth.

Agnieszka Madera was already there and quickly ran to her apartment in one of the cheaper districts of Warsaw. She had just opened the door when a tiny four-year-old creature fell into her arms.

"Good evening, dear, why are you awake?"

"Uhm, I missed mommy!" he replied wryly cuddling his face against her cheek."

"I'm sorry," announced the nanny, an elderly lady who, who was supplementing her pension. "Kazio has been missing a lot lately and has become whiny because of it. I thought it wouldn't hurt if we just... once."

Madera smiled and nodded. It wasn't the babysitter's fault, it was hers, that her four-year-old son had to miss her. She was the one who always came home so late.

Agnieszka hugged her son tighter. She wanted to pour all her love into him.

Four moms can't hug their baby because of Kwiecień. How many more monsters lurk on the city streets to hurt innocent children?

She wasn't a police officer, but she believed that if she did her job right, if she stigmatized the criminal not for the sake of sensationalism but for the sake of stigmatizing the crime, the world would be a little safer for her son.