Jan 5, 2009

Journalism ethics

While Sean Dunne might be a financial scumbag who screwed the country to maximise his profits, it seems wrong to publish what he said at 3am in a pub after getting totally hammered. I think it's related to the issue of consent. Did the alcohol affect Dunne's discretion? Does Dunne have any discretion? Is it ok to quote someone under the influence? The NYT seems to think so. I think it's a scumbag move.

It’s 3 a.m. at Doheny & Nesbitt, a favorite watering hole of Dublin’s political and business elite, and the property tycoon Sean Dunne stoops to retrieve a penny from the pub’s grimy floor.

One would think that Mr. Dunne, Ireland’s best-known building developer, would be in bed at this hour. It’s a weeknight, after all, and he has meetings that begin before first light.

What’s more, the Irish economy, pummeled by the most severe housing bust in Europe, has collapsed. And the gossip around town is that Mr. Dunne, whose brazen deal-making and Donald Trump-like lifestyle epitomized the country’s euphoric boom, might be going bankrupt.

But, no matter, a penny is a penny.

“I am never, never too proud to pick a penny up from the floor,” Mr. Dunne said. He is on perhaps his fifth pint of Guinness, capping a rollicking night of Champagne cocktails, followed by a wine-soaked dinner — yet his thick brogue is clear of even the faintest slurring.

“I grew up with nothing and I know the value of money,” he adds. “The Celtic Tiger may be dead and if the banking crisis continues I could be considered insolvent. But the one thing that I have is my wife and children — that they can’t take away from me.”

Stay classy Landon Thomas. Stay classy.

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