From a journalistic standpoint, the articles on child pornography don't pose an ethical dilemma. They present the issue of pedophile chat rooms and child pornography as investigative reporting. When conversations were cited in the articles, they use aliases or screen names which already protect people's identification. There is a legal dilemma however. In the case of child pornography, almost every case has to be reviewed independently. The old saying about pornography is, "I know it when I see it." Because no law can be written to cover every case, each picture must be judged on its own. This allows for a lot of judicial discretion. One judge could rule a picture while the other may not. This aspect of pornography makes it a very murky issue for lawmakers. Lastly, I would not want to be the reporter assigned to this story. Must readers probably just dismiss the news story because they don't even want to know about the vulgar nature of the subject. Also, I would let the FBI know that I'm working on this story so agents don't break down my door.

I read the story about Bob Greene before for Dr. Spinner's class, but I'd forgotten what Greene had done wrong. It's funny because when I re-read this story, I thought he was being fired for cooking stories--the same thought I had the first time I read it. Zehme builds up this monumental transgression and my initial thought was, "What could be worse for a reporter than cooking stories." (By "cooking" I mean making up facts, sources and quotes). But no, Greene had an affair with a woman 14 years ago. His credibility as a columnist was weakened, but, as Zehme says, it was not illegal and it does not violate any journalism codes.

The other thing I suspected while reading the column was that Greene kills himself. But he doesn't and in fact the story ends kind of abruptly. Considering how journalists have been abused by things they've done: Rush Limbah took prescription pills and Dan Rather cooked a story about the Bush Administration. Both of these guys have gotten off easily compared to Greene and yet it can be argued that their actions were worse, or at least had a more immediate effect on their jobs.