Censorship

The police officer who tells court the evidence about all the ticket cases (ie. speeding and underage drinking) asked me for a favour. He wanted me to write a story about how a crazy woman* sneakily managed to convince the police to drop the charges against her.

I told the officer that while I think the story is news, I'm not sure it's a wise idea to write it. If I do, I'll have to explain what she did to get the charges dropped and I don't think it's in the public's best interest for law breakers to know a way to get out of their cases.

It's not my job as a journalist to censor the news; I should be opposed to that at all costs. But at the same time as I'm considering censoring this story, I like reporting because I'm uncovering the dark parts of things and (hopefully) encouraging change.

I already told the officer I didn't want to do the story, but now I'm not so sure.

My dilemma reminds me of a story I read about young girls taking crystal meth. The story was almost like an add for the drug, saying it helps people lose weight, have lots of energy, not need to sleep and not need to eat. Oh, and the story also mentioned how cheap meth is. There was only a tiny section on the dangers of taking meth. It made me angry that a reporter could write that without considering the social costs of the story.

Am I right that the cost to society is reason enough to refuse to write this story?

(I would ask the editor and the staff here, but they would think something like this: "If criminals knew there was a way to get their charges dropped, they would by the paper to find out how. There are a lot of law breakers in town, so we would make a lot of money. Let's put the story on the front page with a step-by-step guide to being cleared." So that's why I would really value some cyber-opinions.)

* This is the same woman who was charged with hitting a firefighter with a stick.