(reference to the film “State of Play”)

The recent political scandal involving the private military group, PointCorp, and Senator Stephen Collins has highlighted several ethical issues in regards to journalism. Cal McCaffery, a senior journalist from the Washington Post, has obtained information in some ways deemed unethical, thus placing his personal reputation, as well as his employer’s future at risk.

In order to initiate the investigation, the reporter in question sought to use his closest “connections” in order to obtain information. McCaffery, who was romantically involved with the Senator’s wife, Anne Collins, used this special relationship to extract information from her, which normally would be placed on the record; but in this case it wasn’t. By interrogating Anne Collins, who was emotionally distraught due to the extra-marital affair revealed by her husband, McCaffery discovered information such as Anne’s knowledge of Stephen’s whereabouts. He also questioned her if Stephen had other extra-marital affairs, but Anne was in no position to answer objectively. McCaffery’s goal in interrogating Anne Collins was to see if the murder of Sonia Baker, his assistant, was directly related into the congressional investigation into the private military company.

Since Anne Collins “off the record” testimony revealed little into the investigation of PointCorp, McCaffery in an unauthorized manner, seized private information from a cell phone of one of the deceased victims of the investigation. The telephone numbers obtained from the device helped reveal an important suspect of the investigation of the murder of Baker.

The most damaging aspect of this investigation is McCaffery’s tendency to withhold evidence from the police department, in which they explicitly stated that their office, the Washington Police Department, must be on the same page as the Washington Post in this murder investigation. When McCaffery obtains the suitcase filled with the pictures of Sonia, the Senator’s aid whose death is at the center of this investigation, instead of bringing it to the WPD, he deposits the files in his supervisor’s office. After delaying the evidence for 24 hours, with total consent from his supervisor and the company lawyer, they (the Washington Post) notified WPD, in which the law enforcement agency was furious, due to the fact it could have been a day earlier in which they could have captured the murderer, whose actions had claimed three lives up to this point. He also withheld evidence extracted from the PointCorp insider, Dominic Floyd, which linked Sonia to the corporation.

Another aspect of this investigation that is flawed is the whole Floyd affair. McCaffery managed to blackmail Floyd, in which he would reveal his relationship to Sonia and PointCorp if Floyd would not have cooperated with his investigation. Having brought Floyd to a motel room, McCaffery is annotated everything, but little does Floyd know that he was secretly being videotaped from across the hall, something that is clearly illegal to do. McCaffery also brought Senator Collins to the secret videotaping room, in which during the course of his stay, Floyd revealed that Sonia was pregnant, placing Collins in a mood of emotional distraught. After Floyd testifies to this, Collins leaves the room, and attacks Floyd, who wasn’t reminiscent of the senator’s arrival.

Although PointCorp sought for “the Privatization of Homeland Security”, if future practices were to be held by McCaffery’s standard, the whole area of journalism is at risk. If other journalists were to pursue the same thought process as McCaffery’s, it questions the validity of any evidence discovered in any investigation, whether it would be related to journalism or law enforcement. McCaffery’s actions, such as the use of the unauthorized cell phone, as well as Floyd’s testimony, placed the whole congressional investigation at risk, in which the American people would serve as collateral.

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