Word: could
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...could have gone back to Boston without making it clear to Caleb what the angle of my story was going to be. But I wanted to make sure he had a full chance to respond to the questions I would be raising in my article...
There wasn't much Caleb could do, in fact, except register his objections, and then, when the article came out, call me on the phone to tell me that he thought I had done exactly what he thought would be most unfair: portray him in the pages of Fifteen Minutes as some toolish junior with delusions of presidential grandeur...
...many ways, of course, that was true. I never forced Caleb to say anything he didn't want to say. He could respond to me in any way he chose. He might not be able to control the angle of my article, but he had full control over himself...
...journalist, though, I had no ethical responsibility to be nice. My responsibilities were to the truth, as best as I could understand it, and to my readers. It was my job to pose interesting questions and find out the answers. As a reporter, making people unhappy or uncomfortable is often a sign that you're onto something that's actually worth writing about. Of course, there’s a calculation to be made about the value of information to the public versus the distress it may cause to individuals—a calculation that’s more difficult...
...what I had said to him during the reporting process. He suggested that by telling him, in that initial phone call, that he didn't have to talk about the future, I had straight-out lied to him. That would be a breach of journalistic ethics that could invalidate parts of my article...