They are taking on the same oath as naturalist film makers. You know, the ones who will stand by and film a baby seal being eaten by a polarbear, when they could have warned it or taken other actions. It's exactly like that.

They are there to observe and record.

We'll see a lot of MSM chin-stroking, hand-wringing, and pud-pulling over this non-issue simply because it's easy and fun to bang out column-inches talking about yourself and your friends.

Pud-pulling -- You have such a way with words.

If they were consistent, they'd recuse themselves from voting, jury duty, etc. This puts me in mind of two passages from a certain literary classic:

Ethics: 1.Opposite of morality (grounded in self-esteem rather than humility). 2. Unwritten law by which intellectuals govern their behavior. Ethics vary according to group allegiance, but can always be determined by graduates of ethics courses.

Morality: Lowbrow populist substitute for ethics. Requires less education, but more religious training, often of an unsavory Judeo-Christian variety. (See Judgmental)

The Democrats' Dictionary

Jack Schafer is no Captain Kirk.

Maybe this is why Shepard Smith didn't haul all those New Orleans people on the bridge to the parked buses. OR give them food and water?

EXACTLY, RWS. Now, how do we convince Hollywood that they should have a similar oath?

And yet, you know, they have this major code against making themselves part of the story.

Well, Mary Mapes didn't go to the rodeo to collect the Bush files from Lucy Ramirez. She had Bill Burkett do it. Why? Because she didn't want to violate the Prime Directive. For that reason, Mary Mapes is a way better reporter than Kurt Eichenwald. That, and her eerie-scary ability to deny her naked partisanship and Bush-hatred with a face that launched won a thousand ships Texas Hold 'Em tournaments.

The strike-outs showed up on preview. Hmmmm....

Wasn't there a kerfuffle a few years back over Dr. Janjay Gupta, CNN's medical correspondent, helping with heart surgery, and by so honoring his Hypocratic oath, possibly violating his Vulturcratic (ie journalistic) oath?

Dr. Gupta made the mistake of using his MD skeels in Iraq.

It should be noted that reporters "interfere" in events by the simple act of reportage. Reporting changes things.

Perfect. Exactly. It's Schroedinger's Cat on the non-quantum level. What a joker like Shafer doesn't understand is that he's already interfering. He doesn't have a choice about that. His only choice is choosing HOW to interfere. And I guess he's chosen "By being a self-absorbed, faux-disinterested dipshit."

Reporters are like the Borg but without the finely tuned moral nuance .

I suppose their emphasis on their 'journalistic' ethics are largely a defense mechanism to prevent any form of introspective analysis which might be somewhat uncomfortable .

Dregs.

Wait, isn't the NYT that newspaper where reporters just make things up? How much do you want to bet that Kurt Eichenwald fabricated his "rescue"?

I heard a piece-which I tried to link here, but your spam filter found the web site to be questionable content, so go to the place I mentioned hearing it on and search for NYT and the name of the reporter-- on NPR by a former Pulitzer Prize winning former NYT reporter (Liane Hansen) who praised the NYT for actually reporting on something extremely difficult and not just walking away with a story.

I guess it's like the rule of nature photography. You are not supposed to interfere with nature. You know, save the baby cheetah from the hyenas.

Whoops, sorry I realize the first commenter said the same thing! I am nothing if not redundant. By the way all men are GAY!!!

Based on my reading of Schafer's article and the give and take between him and Eichenwald it seems to me that had Eichenwald not been able to convince Berry to turn himself in he would have let those children go on being molested and possibly killed.

Here is the pertinent part of Eichenwald's response:

"Of course, we could have reported these crimes to the government ourselves—but I thought that crossed a line from reporter to witness. Plus, there were source confidentiality issues in play at that point—how do I reveal this, without revealing the source?"

What kind of a self-important duechebag thinks that his own navel-gazing self image as a "reporter" trumps his obligation as a human being to save children (or anyone frankly) from being abused or killed? How many times were those children molested while he tried to get Justin Berry to take the responsibility from him? What if Justin Berry had ultimately said "No". I shudder to think.

That said, obviously Jack Schafer is even worse. Was it just me or did he equivocate drug/weapons dealing with a child molestation ring? All are bad, one is infinitely worse, get a clue dickhead.

Am I correct that doctors and lawyers cannot use a confidentiality defense if they have ongoing knowledge of criminal actions?

Reminds me a bit of my girlfriend back in college who had her picture snapped by a newspaper photographer after flipping her car over and becoming trapped underneath.

The fucker was the 1st person on the scene and his 1st priority was to get a shot.

Am I correct that doctors and lawyers cannot use a confidentiality defense if they have ongoing knowledge of criminal actions?

I don't know about doctors, but lawyers have a duty to disclose confidential information in order to prevent a client from committing a crime, or to prevent a death or substantial bodily harm to another. (We still can't disclose where the body is.)

Since the passage of Sarbanes Oxley, a subset of corporate lawyers working for publicly traded companies have additional disclosure duties relating to the prevention of fraud.

Doctors, Nurses and EMS personel are required to report even suspected abuse or neglect of children or dependent adults. I believe that's a federal law, but don't quote me on that.

...save the baby cheetah from the hyenas. My ass... they threw the baby cheetah to the hyenas so they could get the shot... I like those When Animals Attack videos... videographer stands there while the mountain lion sneaks up and rips his buddy to shreds all the while shooting the footage and not warning his buddy... what a fjuckhead!

These dirty journanalists support child pornography yet support gun control what a bunch of dirty two faced rats

Spurwing should be writing fortune cookies or something. It's becoming zen for me. I feel like I've entered a higher state of being.

All that is required for evil to win, is for good men to be reporters.

I'm pretty sure that is a famous quote of some sort...

Now you see, Lone Starr, that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.