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This article analyzes news media scandals as critical incidents in journalism. A critical incident can be broadly understood as an event or development that reflects 'the hows and whys' of journalism. A part of the research into critical incidents studies these as occurrences that are made scandalous by journalistic misdeeds or ethical lapses. The purpose of this article is twofold: first, theoretically, to link this understanding of critical incidents to the study and theory of the scandal. Second, empirically, to analyze how different types of news media scandals lead to reflection and debate about journalism. To achieve this purpose, the article focuses on two specific types of news media scandals: the fabrication scandal and the erroneous information scandal. The two types of scandals bring into question fundamental standards and practices of journalism, such as 'telling the truth' and basing stories on 'facts.' They also lead to reflections on 1) increased competition between news media, 2) the pressure to produce more stories inside the individual newsroom, 3) the drive to get a 'scoop,' 4) journalism's relationship to powerful and/or anonymous sources, and 5) the problems of a 'trust, not supervise' culture in the newsroom.

Da den såkaldte ubådssag startede, begyndte en sideløbende omfattende politiefterforskning og mediedækning af den drabssigtede Peter Madsen og den forsvundne/døde journalist Kim Wall. Denne artikel har et presseetisk perspektiv på dækningen, og gennem analyse af Ekstra Bladets journalistik diskuteres de presseetiske grænser og gråzoner, der opstår, når tabloidjournalisterne træder ind i en detektivrolle og efterligner politiets arbejdspraksis, samtidig med at de både skal levere fascinerende fortællinger med følelsesappel og er underlagt presseetiske regler. Studiet dokumenterer og diskuterer presseetiske dilemmaer, der opstår i relation til især motivspekulation, kildebrug, og når den hovedmistænkte er kendt i offentligheden.

In December of 2015 two major journalistic scandals hit the Danish news media. The two scandals ran almost concurrently, which increased the media attention and was reflected in the coverage. In a time of diminishing trust in the news media these scandals represented a significant and acute credibility problem for the news media that were affected. Using paradigm repair theory coupled with theory about transparency, this paper analyses which strategies the affected news media employed to re-instore trust in their journalism, and thus in the traditional news paradigm. Like previous studies we find that the news media tried to distance themselves from the journalists involved in the scandals and describe them as 'bad apples'. In both scandals the news media also went to great lengths to investigate the accusations and publically document the transgressions of the reporters. This effort could be seen as an attempt to increase transparency about the scandals, but the reports focused only on the journalists in focus, and not on the news organization, where they worked. As a consequence the affected editors and news organizations largely avoided any blame and speculation as to their role in the scandals.

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