CHOICE PROCESSES IN A NEWSPAPER ETHICS CASE

This study examines the choice processes of Midwestern newspaper staff ers who participated in the professionally questionable decision to '' kill'' a photograph of a fatal wreck scene at the request of the victi m's family. This case study illustrates organizational, cognitive, and professional factors that may influence ethical decision making in sm all groups. The analysis shows how organizational routines, profession al norms and other factors entered into this decision through talk and how these factors then effected their influence on the final outcome by prescribing decision makers' argumentation and negotiation patterns . The theoretical framework used in this case study draws from a numbe r of perspectives, including Allison's (1986) Bureaucratic Politics Mo del and Weick (1979), as well as theory and research in cognitive soci al psychology, organizational communication, organizational behavior, and mass media ethics.