(+) If You Point Your Finger at Your Neighbour, How Many Point Back at You?

So it is all of us - newspapers, magazines, television, radio and increasingly web sites on the internet - who have become ever more dependent on the information traders. There have been a whole range of consequences. And I fear it is our standards as  journalists - our ethics - which are increasingly under threat."

---- Leaks, Lies & Tip Offs, former BBC political correspondent Nicholas Jones.

The latest police search of the Fiji Times offices has again prompted the International Federation of Journalists to rush to the newpaper's defence and Editor Netani Rika to say “the search warrant was a complete waste of time for the police and the firm."

Police said they were looking for a petition signed by Ministry of Finance staff addressed to the Public Service Commission, which they warned the FT not to publish. The FT did not deny their reporter Reijeli Kikau was (or had been) in possession of the document,  or that it had at some time been in their offices.

  
If this were the case, how come that a petition (or its copy) addressed to the PSC was in the possession of their reporter?  Who gave her this material addressed to somone else, and what did she -- and the person who gave it to her -- expect her to do with it?  What would the public think had the petition been published? With whom, the petitioners or the petitioned, would the public most sympathise?  And why should the police not search for this sort of document?

These are ethical questions concerning the sources and uses of media information; questions with strong political implications at the present time.