‘ROLLING STONE’ STIRS UP ETHICS DEBATE
There almost had to be something wrong with this picture:
Rolling Stone magazine, still bruised from erroneous reporting about campus rape, scores an exclusive interview with escaped Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán.
The interview conducted by actor Sean Penn and posted on
Rolling Stone’s website Saturday fueled several misgivings. An editor’s note said Guzmán was given right of refusal after reading a finished version, and some names had been changed. The magazine said Guzmán, who does not speak English, asked for no changes.
Ceding such control to Guzmán was professionally “inexcusable,” wrote Reuters reporter Andrew Seaman, who chairs the ethics committee for the Society of Professional Journalists, in a blog Saturday night.
Questions remain about whether the magazine’s efforts to secure the interview in October helped recapture the prison escapee Friday. An unnamed Mexican federal law enforcement official told the Associated Press that Penn’s interview assisted efforts. Penn, in the article, makes clear he worked hard to avoid being noticed by police.
Other journalism analysts said the Guzmán interview was a bona fide scoop and could help restore the magazine’s tarnished image. “Rolling Stone needed this story,” said Samir Husni, professor at the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and director of the school’s Magazine Innovation Center. He said the decision to let an actor to conduct the interview was a classic Rolling Stone mix of pop culture and journalism.
The magazine reached an alltime low last year after The
Washington Post uncovered serious ethical lapses in an article about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia, published in 2014. The magazine ended up retracting the story last April and is being sued by the fraternity.
Jeffrey Toobin, senior legal analyst for CNN, said Sunday he didn’t see any legal problems with interviewing the fugitive drug lord. “Journalists are not obliged to help the police in the United States or elsewhere to find fugitives,” he said on Reliable Sources.