Professional Ethics Issue:

The case where the professional ethics issue arises is a situation in which the commended obligation for journalists to safeguard the confidentiality of their sources conflict with their supposed duty to help legal authorities in the quest for justice. As a notable case, Time's Matthew Cooper and New York Times' Judith Miller are facing an ethical dilemma with two major options. First, these journalists are faced with the option of cooperating with legal authorities through disclosing their sources, which effectively betrays the sources' trust and that of the public. On the contrary, these journalists face the option of maintaining their sources' confidentiality at the expense of failure to safeguard United States national security and Valerie Plame, an innocent CIA agent. Therefore, the situation is regarded as a conflict between ordinary morality and role morality, which is an interesting and controversial situation that requires extensive analysis.

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