Is this ethical or shoddy journalism?

Not sure if this is the correct forum for this. The link tells of how Sarkozy and Obama made some critical remarks about the Israeli Prime Minister at the G20 Summit because, after a press conference, their microphones were still hot and they did not realize it. The assembled press agreed not to report on this situation. Are they shirking their responsibility or is this a circumstance where they should have kept quiet? I am just curious what the board thinks.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4145266,00.html

 

"Bombing begins in five minutes."

 

Political reporters not actually reporting, but acting as the mouthpieces of world leaders? I'm shocked.

 

Hard to answer the question. What type and how many guns were held to their heads to force them to capitulate?

 

What's ynet?

 

The fact that reporters "were requested to sign an agreement to keep mum on the embarrassing comments" is what surprises me. Maybe it shouldn't. I would have reported it anyway. If they want to retaliate by banning my news organization from further events, then it'll only make the story bigger. Kind of the way the current administration tried to tie the hands of news organizations that were not writing favorable (aka fluff) pieces about obama. Once that got out, the admin did some backtracking.

 

If you are not breaking the law or some previous agreement to get in position to listen, and you have not agreed to go off the record, then if you can hear it, you can run it.

The mic was hot? That's their housekeeping problem, not the reporters'. Run with it.

 

What happened if they refused to sign?

 

Extraordinary rendition.

 

First, you don't sign the agreement.
Second, you report what was said.
Third, you report on being asked to sign an agreement not to report it.
Not report it? Wouldn't the video already be on YouTube, have been tweeted, and so on? This isn't 1880.

 

This was what I was wondering about. There is no way I would have signed that agreement. I can understand this is embarassing for those involved, but if you have a microphone in front of you, you better make damn sure it is off before you start talking like this.