If you're old enough to be writing professional articles at a major news source, you're old enough to know that asking for goodies in exchange for articles is not ok. I can't imagine that he was confused on whether or not this was acceptable; he just made a bad choice and got caught.
The typical errors of young-adulthood are not those of moral incompetence, but simple bad judgement.
If he initiated this kind of behaviour then I'm with you. If he was approached by a company first and they promised him some goodies in exchange for a write-up with the note that 'everybody does it' then you get in to a gray area.
After that he's definitely not in the clear for not going higher up and asking his boss about this, and TC is not in the clear for not spelling this sort of stuff out to journalists and interns alike.
They're neither, they're errors of "acting before stopping and thinking". The part of your brain that considers the effects of your actions in the future and on others doesn't develop usually until at the earliest 17, at the latest 24.
This is Exactly the type of error 17 year olds make.
>Adolescents frequently know the difference between right and wrong, but they have diminished capacities to understand and process information, to communicate, to abstract from mistakes and learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, to control impulses, and to understand others’ reactions. The psychological evidence suggests that immaturity of adolescent judgment is not under voluntary control.
>New imaging studies reveal patterns of brain development that extend into and beyond the teenage years.6,7
