Posted: June 20th, 2017

You are editor of your high school student newspaper, the Student Times. Jennifer, a classmate you trust, just walked into the newsroom to tell you that, for the last few months her math teacher has been making inappropriate, sexually suggestive comments to her after class. Unfortunately, she says there were no witnesses to any of their exchanges. She has not reported the incidents to anyone else. You believe that sexual harassment is a serious problem that really needs to be addressed. Which of the following options do you consider the best?

You are editor of your high school student newspaper, the Student
Times. Jennifer, a classmate you trust, just walked into the newsroom
to tell you that, for the last few months her math teacher has been
making inappropriate, sexually suggestive comments to her after
class. Unfortunately, she says there were no witnesses to any of their
exchanges. She has not reported the incidents to anyone else. You
believe that sexual harassment is a serious problem that really needs
to be addressed. Which of the following options do you consider the
best?
a. Because you believe Jennifer to be an honest person, you publish a
story reporting her claims without any further investigation.
b. You do not attempt to cover the story or the issue of sexual
harassment at all. It’s just too risky.
c. You contact the math teacher prior to publication and give him a
chance to deny and respond to the charges, but otherwise publish
Jennifer’s accusations as she relayed them to you.
d. You publish a story about the issue of sexual harassment generally
using Jennifer’s accusation as an example. But you do not use either
Jennifer or the teacher’s names in the story and are careful to avoid
including any other information that might identify them (you refer
to them as only “a student” and “a teacher”).