The Baltimore City Paper's Van Smith made a unique disclosure in a Mobtown Beat story on Wednesday titled "Sweet Deal." Ten years ago, the author had bought small quantities of marijuana from the subject of the story.
The "subject" was a record company owner who had pleaded guilty to drug charges.
Is this a conflict that needed to be disclosed? Smith told Jim Romenesko, who runs a popular media blog, that he had no choice. As most reporters know, the cover-up is often worse than the crime, and it would be embarrassing for it to come out from someone else that you had once bought drugs from the drug dealer you're writing about.
Here is what Van Smith told Romenesko:
"Journalistic reasons. Had to. No other options, given deadline, foreclosing possibility of someone else writing the piece instead, which would've been preferable. My long-ago interactions with the subject only dawned on me after I'd interviewed him and was writing up the part in which he poured out his guts and said he'd dealt weed for years. After giving it some thought, including trying to rationalize NOT disclosing, I realized there simply was no other way to deal with the situation."