Choice processes in a newspaper ethics case

Abstract

This study examines the choice processes of Midwestern newspaper staffers who participated in the professionally questionable decision to “kill” a photograph of a fatal wreck scene at the request of the victim's family. This case study illustrates organizational, cognitive, and professional factors that may influence ethical decision making in small groups. The analysis shows how organizational routines, professional norms and other factors entered into this decision through talk and how these factors then effected their influence on the final outcome by prescribing decision makers' argumentation and negotiation patterns. The theoretical framework used in this case study draws from a number of perspectives, including Allison's (1986) Bureaucratic Politics Model and Weick (1979), as well as theory and research in cognitive social psychology, organizational communication, organizational behavior, and mass media ethics.