Today a piece of ground beef gave me first test in Journalism ethics.
For a multimedia package I was working on about restaurants, a partner and I filmed the chef of a local restaurant making some monkfish (”a poor man’s lobster”). Afterward, at the very same place, I ordered a cheeseburger. When it came time to pay, the chef who showed us the fish told me it was on the house.
My partner and I insisted we had to pay, otherwise it was accepting a gift. The chef obliged, although I was concerned over whether I should leave a tip (I did).
Although I’m sure everything was A-OK, I stil feel like I made the wrong choice to even put myself int he position where, if I wasn’t paying attention,I could have gotten in a lot of trouble.
And besides, the burger stunk.
But the days of my college paper where we would readily take home the free CD’s or hang up the promo posters around the office are different than when you represent a large newspaper. Lesson learned.