Holding up a mirror

During my early days of investigative reporting for WSB-Television in Atlanta, I often agonized about how the stories would affect the non-violent people who’d done wrong…how especially it would hurt their families.  I remember the first time I voiced my concerns to my boss, then News Director Ray Moore.  Ray suggested that I think of myself as holding up mirror…that I didn’t create what the mirror reflected.     For example, there was a county commissioner we discovered  accepting bribes..  The commissioner was a church- going “pillar of the community” with a wife and children.   We found in an undercover investigation that he was taking bribes from the madam of a house of prostitution.    He led her to believe that it was his influence that kept the cops away. The commissioner went to prison.   His family suffered the shame.    I reasoned (rationalized) that I was only doing my job by holding up the mirror.