Sean Penn’s El Chapo interview raises ethical red flag

It's not often that Gawker and the New York Post have occasion to see eye to eye, but after Rolling Stone magazine published its gonzo first-person account on the weekend of Sean Penn meeting the murderous Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, both outlets suddenly discovered their inner ethics snob.

Here were two publications that normally take great glee in blowing apart conventional journalistic ethics finding that they were on the same side as – well, frankly, as most other mainstream news outlets in decrying the compromises Rolling Stone apparently made to land its explosive exclusive with the fugitive.

But how different is it, really, from the compromises that journalists make every day?

An editor's note atop the article informs readers that "an understanding was brokered with the subject that this piece would be submitted for the subject's approval before publication. The subject did not ask for any changes."

To many journalists, this is anathema, because it can cause a reporter to pull punches, to soften a story to ensure that it passes muster with the subject.

"The practice of pre-approval discredits the entire story – whether the subject requests changes or not," wrote Andrew Seaman, the chair of the ethics committee of the Society of Professional Journalists.

In a blog post published on Monday afternoon, The New York Times's public editor, Margaret Sullivan, quotes the paper's executive editor, Dean Baquet, as saying that he "would have walked away from the interview."

Still, Steve Coll, the dean of the Columbia Journalism School, was more cautious. "It's hard to judge what Rolling Stone was thinking since apparently the veto wasn't exercised, freeing the magazine of any dilemma," he told The New York Times.

That in itself, though, "worries me," an excitable Brian Stelter said on CNN's Reliable Sources. "If he didn't demand any changes, that means he liked the story! Should this drug kingpin like the whole story?"

In fact, we don't actually know what El Chapo (Joaquín Guzmán Loera) thought of the story. Penn spends thousands of words detailing the logistical hoops through which he and his associates had to jump in order to secure their meeting – from his use of burner cellphones and anonymous e-mail addresses (he probably could have used some tips from Edward Snowden) to the cloak-and-dagger, 14-hour journey by two planes, a minivan, an SUV and a truck from Los Angeles to El Chapo's hideout in a jungle clearing.

Thousands of more words are spent on Penn's attempts to arrange a follow-up meeting for an actual interview, and the fact that he and Rolling Stone had to settle, in the end, for a 17-minute video interview conducted by one of the drug lord's associates. "Of the many questions I'd sent El Chapo, a cameraman out of frame asks a few of them directly, paraphrases others, softens many and skips some altogether," Penn noted.

It's odd, then, given Penn's volubility, that he doesn't tell the reader anything about how El Chapo reacted to the piece. (In fact, it's hard to know how he might have read the final piece, given that it includes a mention of his capture.)

Still, it's not hard, given Penn's world view, with its baked-in skepticism of government power, to imagine that he wrote precisely the piece he wanted, without any concern of what his subject might think. While he doesn't point the finger at El Chapo himself – and in fact suggests that the kingpin "only resorts to violence when he deems it advantageous to himself or his business interests" – he does note that he had "seen plenty of video and graphic photography of those beheaded, exploded, dismembered or bullet-riddled innocents, activists, courageous journalists and cartel enemies alike."

The softest part of the piece, in fact, is the Q&A that Penn himself didn't conduct. Running just under 1,400 words, it is almost comically toothless. El Chapo speaks reverently of his mother, denies that he personally has any impact on Mexico, notes that "drug trafficking does not depend on just one person," denies that he is a violent person, and says, "All I do is defend myself, nothing more. But do I start trouble? Never."

It is, clearly, a piece of propaganda, and many outlets would blanch at publishing it. But popular outlets regularly offer platforms to material that is potentially far more damaging. For many years, Al Jazeera was considered to be a dependable mouthpiece for the Taliban, which regularly saw its videos air unedited on that Qatar-based network. Last winter, Fox News posted the entire 22-minute video, made by the propaganda arm of the Islamic State, of the live immolation of a Jordanian pilot.

We live in a media environment in which news outlets are forced to do an ever-more-delicate dance with subjects. Like IS, El Chapo himself could have uploaded his interview; outlets around the world would have breathlessly reposted it, with nary a concern about ethics.

So, we can be aghast that Rolling Stone published the transcript of a Q&A for which Penn didn't even provide the questions, and in which he was not able to ask follow-ups. But, here in Canada, journalists have just passed through almost a decade of dealing with a federal government that, more often than not, either refused to answer questions or insisted on taking them over e-mail.

We objected, sure. And then we published their answers just the same.