A Clothes Call

Li is a journalist in her forties who works for a New York newspaper. She chiefly covers immigration issues. Recently, Li wrote a story on “people smuggling,” and interviewed a man who had been smuggled into the United States. He eventually landed a contract with a clothing company, and opened a factory in New York City. When Li visited the factory for the interview, it quickly became clear that, for all intents and purposes, this man was actually working in a sweatshop. The footage from the interview was sure to embarrass the clothing company, and Li was afraid it could be enough to lose this man his contract. Li’s producer ended up using the footage, and, sure enough, the clothing company called to complain.

Li is a journalist in her forties who works in New York City. She has been on leave for the past ten months, but plans to return to work in a few weeks. She says that her time off has given her time “to think and chat and brainstorm.” When she goes back to work, she will be returning to a much more high-pressured lifestyle:

“The pressure is tremendous. It’s a high pressure job. You’ve got to be masochistic to be at this job. Some days I ask, ‘why am I doing this? I don’t have to.’”

In addition to the day-to-day pressures of her busy job, Li says that she faces “ethical problems all the time” in her work: these are often situations in which she feels torn between her professional obligations and her personal sense of right and wrong. For instance, when she first began working as a journalist, she says that she was given the job of interviewing the grieving families of murder victims. She was torn between the need to get a story and the feeling that it would be better to leave a family in peace as they dealt with their loss. In speaking about interviewing a grieving mother, she says:

“What right do I have? But I have to ask the question. I have to talk to her. I have to get her to talk to me. But as a person, why should she talk to you? As a person, I would [advise] her to tell the media to get lost.”

Li feels a deep commitment to her work, and she does her best to balance this commitment with her personal standards and values. “In each decision,” Li explains, “you try to be a good journalist and reporter and you try to be a good person. You make these decisions all the time. You use your common sense.” 

Li was born in Hong Kong, and lived there until she finished college. Education was extremely important in Li’s family, and her maternal grandmother and her father both played large roles in her early education. By the time she was three, the two of them had her reciting Chinese poetry; Li says that Chinese writing is “like Chaucerian English. You have to recite it.” In addition to poetry, her grandmother would teach her math by having her practice addition and subtraction using peanuts: “Count it right, and you got to eat it,” Li remembers. 

Li started her formal education at a Chinese school in her neighborhood where she took classes in Chinese. After this, she attended a convent high school and then a university where all the classes were taught in English. Li started Chinese writing clubs outside of school in response to the lack of Chinese classes, as a sort of rebellion. She describes her college years as a time of “idealism,” and a time of challenging authority. College was also a time during which she explored journalism for the first time, as she was the editor of her college newspaper. 

When Li arrived in the United States in 1972, she worked as a social worker for two years before taking a job as a community reporter at a Chinese newspaper. She has worked in journalism ever since, and has been at her current job at a New York newspaper for the past six years. She writes chiefly on issues of immigration, and tries, through her work, to provide a voice for those who need it. She feels that her background helps her to cover immigration issues because it allows her to “move between two worlds” and “move between cultural lenses.” She also feels that she is able to be “very open about new situations.” In her work as a journalist, she feels responsible to her sources, to her readers, and to “the people that the story [will] impact.” 

Recently, while she was working on a television program on “people smuggling,” Li interviewed a man who had escaped from the ship in which he had been smuggled. He ended up landing a contract with a clothing company, and opening a factory “right in the heart of Manhattan” with a business partner. In one sense, it was the story of one man’s triumph over innumerable obstacles. And yet, there was a darker side to the story. When Li visited the factory for the interview, it quickly became clear that, for all intents and purposes, the man and his business partner were working in a sweatshop. Li says: 

“He showed me that he was making very nice $150 dresses that professional women would buy. He showed me the tag … [The] price tag was $150 and how much did he get [from the clothing company]? Fifteen dollars … Then the ethical question is that on the one hand, I was like, ‘Great, I got a story,’ and on the other hand … what if [the company] takes away his contract? Can I defend him? Would it hurt him?’”

Li worried that airing the story with the footage of the price tag might cause the man to lose his job. She discussed the issue at length with the producer. Li felt torn between her desire to be a “good” journalist, and her feeling that it was inappropriate “as a person” to show the footage. 

Her producer eventually decided to use the footage. “I just let it drift,” Li explains. Although the producer had made the final decision, Li continued to worry. In fact, Li’s story did cause the clothing company a great deal of embarrassment, and the company called Li's producer about it. It turned out, however, that in the elapsed time, the man Li had interviewed had a falling out with his business partner and had left the factory of his own accord. Li felt incredibly relieved that her story had not been the cause of his losing his job, although she acknowledged that she “got off the hook by default,” and that her story could have had more serious consequences for the man she interviewed.

What do you think Li should have done? What are her primary responsibilities as a journalist, and should these responsibilities have guided her decision? Why or why not?