What Would You Do?: An Anonymous Tip


Scenarios: The Senator The Unwed Father Down By The River The Political Cartoon You Have Mail And The Winner Is... A Walk In The Park Man of The People An Anonymous Tip The Interview More open-ended scenarios	You are a reporter for a weekly college newspaper. Your editor leaves because of an emergency and puts you in charge of publishing the next edition. You are working late one evening when the telephone rings. You answer and the person on the other end immediately starts talking. She says "I have some information for you. The new Student Activities Center Director is profiting illegally from rental space contracts. He contracts rental space for different rooms in the center but pockets the money collected. The events contracted are not logged at the Student Activities Center. The contracts are usually for the evening so administrators will not be aware of them. If people ask about these events, he says they were for non-profit organizations and no money was collected. If you need proof look into the event happening tomorrow night at 7pm in the BoBo room. If you look on the student center activities log, this event is not listed. The BoBo room rent is $1500 for three hours. This is all I have to tell you and I will not give you my name." The first thing you do the next day is go to the activities center and ask the secretary to show you the daily log. You notice the 7pm event is not listed. You ask, and the secretary says that the list is current and correct. You wait until 6:30pm and go to the activities center to talk to the people there. You meet a woman who tells you that her organization has booked the room and paid in advance. She says she is not from a non-profit organization. You return to the news office. The caller has given you a great lead. Your research, you believe, confirms the information given by the caller. You have one hour to decide if you will print the story. The problem is, you can not reach the student activities director. What Would You Do? Would you run the story? OR Would you decide to scrap the story until you can speak with the student activities director?

Scenarios:

The Senator

The Unwed Father

Down By The River

The Political Cartoon

An Anonymous Tip

More open-ended scenarios

You are a reporter for a weekly college newspaper. Your editor leaves because of an emergency and puts you in charge of publishing the next edition. You are working late one evening when the telephone rings. You answer and the person on the other end immediately starts talking. She says "I have some information for you. The new Student Activities Center Director is profiting illegally from rental space contracts. He contracts rental space for different rooms in the center but pockets the money collected. The events contracted are not logged at the Student Activities Center. The contracts are usually for the evening so administrators will not be aware of them. If people ask about these events, he says they were for non-profit organizations and no money was collected. If you need proof look into the event happening tomorrow night at 7pm in the BoBo room. If you look on the student center activities log, this event is not listed. The BoBo room rent is $1500 for three hours. This is all I have to tell you and I will not give you my name."

The first thing you do the next day is go to the activities center and ask the secretary to show you the daily log. You notice the 7pm event is not listed. You ask, and the secretary says that the list is current and correct. You wait until 6:30pm and go to the activities center to talk to the people there. You meet a woman who tells you that her organization has booked the room and paid in advance. She says she is not from a non-profit organization.

You return to the news office. The caller has given you a great lead. Your research, you believe, confirms the information given by the caller. You have one hour to decide if you will print the story. The problem is, you can not reach the student activities director.

What Would You Do?

Would you run the story?

OR

Would you decide to scrap the story until you can speak with the student activities director?