Sometimes logic can seem like complete insanity.

POLITICO Editor-in-chief John Harris said he knew with a reasonable degree of certainty by Tuesday evening that the reports of Abedin’s pregnancy were likely true, but could not yet justify overriding what he understood to be Abedin’s wishes, expressed through intermediaries, that her pregnancy not be reported while she was still in her first trimester.

“We knew,” he said. “We knew the Times knew. There wasn’t any doubt by late Tuesday of the facts of the matter. There was still a question of the ‘so what?’ It’s interesting. But is it interesting and relevant? Is it interesting and relevant enough to overcome the natural reluctance to go against wishes when it comes to the most intimate details?”

It also seemed like the pregnancy had no bearing on Weiner’s behavior, which was the essence of the political story.

“It’s a decision that we recognize as a judgment call that people could see differently,” he said. “It’s not a decision that we are on our high-horse about. As most of these difficult decisions are, it wasn’t a matter of absolutes. It’s a matter of competing values.”

He knew it was a risk that another news organization would report it first, but he was willing to take that risk, he said. And after that happened and POLITICO immediately followed with its own confirmation of the story, he said “I felt our responsibility was much lessened. Anybody who had the slightest interest in this already knew it.”

Bob Steele, the director of the Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University, said editors must take great care to balance two competing principles in stories like this: telling the truth and minimizing harm.

“Journalism tells the truth as best as possible on significant stories,” he said. “And assuming this is the truth, and assuming this is a significant story, there is an obligation to report the truth. At the same time, journalists should do their best to minimize harm as best as possible to vulnerable individuals. And in this case, Huma is exceptionally vulnerable. As far as we know, she’s done nothing wrong, and yet she’s caught up in the maelstrom of her husband’s failures. So journalists must be very, very careful and respectful of her in the way in which they report the story, so as not to cause additional harm.”

In this particular case, he thought the information was insufficiently central to the story to merit the invasion of privacy.

“I don’t see the essential journalistic purpose in reporting that, given what I would describe as the additional harm that can occur to her in this particular case. I think she should have control at this point over that information. She’s already by all accounts suffered a great degree of harm by what her husband has done, and then to take away from her the choice of revealing that information about her pregnancy, to me, is ethically irresponsible and unfair.”

(Source: greaterthanlapsed)