Jonna Lightfoot MacLaughlin might be a fictional character in Jo Kadlecek's book, A Minute Before Friday, but one thing is for sure. MacLaughlin is a journalistic hero who faces the same conflicts as real life reporters such as Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, and Edward Murrow.
MacLaughlin knows who she works for; citizens. She is not interested in the "new strategy" implemented by Walter Wood, a man hired to help the Clarion newspaper stay alive. Wood's strategy is a business technique that involves printing stories that make other stories look boring. The problem is that this work ethic goes against an important element of journalism posed by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in their book, The Elements Of Journalism. The second element says that journalism's first loyalty is to citizens. Wood and editor Skip Gravely are not loyal to citizens; they are loyal to money. They transform MacLaughlin's article about Wiccans into a slanted piece that's only interest is marketing. Their only goal is to sell more newspapers.
This goal also goes against the first element of journalism which states that journalism’s first obligation is to the truth. MacLaughlin pursues a story that her editors forbid her from following because she understands her obligation to expose the truth. Wood and Gravely don’t care about printing the truth; they are more obligated to their own reputations and financial situations.
So what should MacLaughlin do? The ninth element of journalism answers this question. It states that journalists have an obligation to exercise their personal conscience. This involves challenging editors, publishers, owners, and even citizens for the truths sake. Even though MacLaughlin pursued the truth and challenged authorities, her article was never printed. But it didn’t matter because as the last element of journalism explains, citizen’s have obligations to. Because of all her hard work outside of the newsroom and aside from the articles she wrote for her job, the corruption at Regal was exposed.
