"The pressure of covering the Smart family seemed to affect everyone. Photographers who wanted talk about new cameras and computers at the scene were met with silence. Others found themselves in emotionally and ethically confusing situations. And before I list some of the, I want to say I'm not doing so to point fingers. This is just how it was..."
Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't see what would be "ethically confusing". The Smarts wanted publicity from the beginning. Any family of a kidnapped child deserves publicity, & the source matters little.
That statement, though, makes one wonder what the heck was known, or rumored, back then.
Lakey, I took that statement to mean that they felt conflicted about their reporting being intrusive in the lives of people they knew. Sure wish the media would feel that way in similar situations.