There are no journalistic ethics that transcend the value of human life. There are none. In a situation where you can save a human life, you must. There isn't any conflict in my mind.
Interpretation
Human life takes precedence over journalistic ethics.
Sebastian Junger's quote emphasizes that the sanctity of human life is paramount and should always be prioritized over the principles of journalism. In situations where one has the power to save a life, ethical considerations related to reporting should not be a hindrance, as the moral imperative to preserve life outweighs any potential conflict with professional standards.
In practice
During a press conference on ethical reporting where this quote can highlight moral standards.
The Army might screw you and your girlfriend might dump you and the enemy might kill you, but the shared commitment to safeguard one another’s lives is unnegotiable and only deepens with time. The willingness to die for another person is a form of love that even religions fail to inspire, and the experience of it changes a person profoundly.
The cause doesn't have to be righteous and battle doesn't have to be winnable; but over and over again throughout history, men have chosen to die in battle with their friends rather than to flee on their own and survive.
When you're scared, you're still hanging on to life. When you're ready to die, you let it go. A sort of emptying out occurs, a giving up on the world that seems oddly familiar even if you've never done it before.
Maybe the ultimate wound is the one that makes you miss the war you got it in.
It's fun to have money, but the more money I get, the less interesting it becomes. If you don't have very much, you have to think about it. If you are starving, you become interested in food. If you are struggling to pay the bills, money becomes tragically important.
In some ways, risk-taking is the ultimate act of self-indulgence , an obscene insult to the preciousness of life. And yet, how can one dismiss something that persists despite every reasonable theory that it shouldn't?
But I killed a man just like my mother did. David says it’s okay because I didn’t mean to, and because he was about to kill that little kid. But I’m pretty sure my mom didn’t mean to kill my dad, either, so what difference does that make, meaning or not meaning to do something? Accident or on purpose, the result is the same, and that’s one fewer life than there should be in the world.
True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.
There are nettles everywhere, but smooth, green grasses are more common still; the blue of heaven is larger than the cloud.
I am too much in love with my lies and hypocrisies not to confess them fervently.
In what terms should we think of these beings, nonhuman yet possessing so very many human-like characteristics? How should we treat them? Surely we should treat them with the same consideration and kindness as we show to other humans; and as we recognize human rights, so too should we recognize the rights of the great apes? Yes.
What makes Iago evil? Some people ask. I never ask.
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