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This dilemma is the oldest in journalism: the tension between personal loyalty and public responsibility. It's up to any investigative journalist sometime. — and it is never simple, even when the answer seems obvious.
Journalistic independence as a condition of credibility
A journalist who chooses to investigate according to his friendships is no longer a journalist — He's a relationshipist. The credibility of journalism rests entirely on the idea that truth is published independently of who it affects. This independence is not an abstraction — It is the very condition of the social utility of the trade.
gratitude as a moral trap
gratitude is a virtue. But when it becomes a means of pressure — conscious or not — to buy a journalist's silence, she turns into a mild corruption. The boss who helps a young journalist does not buy his future silence. If that were the case, the aid should be refused from the outset.
The distinction between man and act
Publicizing the facts about misappropriation means judging an act — Not destroy a man. Ethical journalism distinguishes information in the public interest (the hijacking, the resulting deaths) from personal vindiction. We can account for the facts without trying to humiliate.
This dilemma was only a professional answer: publish. But it has a more complex human response: how to publish by preserving what may be in the relationship, with the transparency that both parties deserve.
