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The News of the World Scandal continues to make headlines this week. It begs the question, how many people knew about this and for how long?

Here is an excerpt from The Daily Beast about Les Hinton, the chief executive of Dow Jones & Co.:

Hinton’s profile is about to get a lot higher over his role in the scandal that brought down Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World. As a Murdoch staffer for more than half a century, Hinton spent a dozen years running News International, the British unit of Murdoch’s global company, including while the phone hacking was taking place at News of the World. And it was Hinton who told a parliamentary committee in 2007 that he was “absolutely convinced” that the illegal accessing of phones was limited to a single rogue reporter.
Read the full article here.

After you read this article, reflect on these questions for a minute.

  • If you knew of something illegal or unethical was going on at your workplace, how would you handle it?
  • Who would you tell and when?
  • Would you tell even if it put you at risk of losing your job?

This might seem like a no brainer for some of you, and some of you may have a harder time knowing exactly what you would do, without being in the situation.

Has this ever happened to you? If you have ever (or you know someone who has) worked somewhere where you knew something illegal or unethical was happening, I’d love to hear your comments below. What’s the best way to handle these situation?

Hallie Crawford
Career Coach