Journalism can never be silent that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault Grunwald as cited in Doole 2014 Basically journalism has two contradicting ethics the commitment to keeping the source of information hidden and the responsibility of exposing the truth of a news story As can be found in the list published by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press many journalists do their best to protect their source of information However in particular cases the source of information can be more or as essential to the news story rather than the information itself Journalists are often faced with situations where the source of information and the information itself are very delicate and crucially important for the public to be aware of According to Fred Brown in the article A Self Serving Leak one of the main responsibilities of journalists is to reveal the truth However protecting the source of information also means that the truth is partially being hidden The society depends on journalism for a particular level of protection This also suggests that masking the information source or part of the information means that the society is being deceived The society is not being given the right to know what is critical to be known Thus when it comes to information dealing with the identification of someone being involved in neglecting the law the journalist must reveal the true picture to the public It is the main aim of the free press to expose the deficiencies and weak points of any of the organisations or even individuals in a society
