Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 8, 1990 TAG: 9004090260
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK LAYMAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But even if we raised our prices and never got a fact wrong, it wouldn't be enough for people such as Louis Hodges, who teaches ethics to would-be journalists at Washington and Lee University.
And, despite what some of our critics think, it wouldn't be enough for us, either.
I spent a recent weekend at W&L's seminar on the ethics of journalism, along with students, professors, lawyers, and reporters and editors from newspapers large (such as The Detroit News) and small (such as The Free-Lance Star in Fredericksburg).
The seminar has been an annual event since the mid-1970s, and I suppose that's because, like viruses, the ethical dilemmas that journalists face are always changing. And their cures aren't easily found.
The question of the weekend wasn't the one reporters and editors always ask: "Is it true?"
The question was, "Is it right?"
We listened. We talked. We argued. But rarely did we agree.
Was it right for The Detroit News to reveal that a Colombian judge targeted for assassination by the Medellin drug cartel was living and working in the city?
Does it make any difference that the judge was using her own name and was working in the Colombian consulate? Or that unknowing neighbors might have been at risk if there were an attempt to kill her?
That one wasn't too tough for most of us; we would have published the story, too. "When I first heard about this, I thought [Robert Giles, the Detroit newspaper's executive director] had lost his marbles," Hodges said. "Then I came to conclude that it wasn't so bad after all."
Still, The Detroit News will have to defend its decision to publish the story in court. The judge sued.
Other questions were tougher.
Was it right for a Dallas newspaper to reveal the name of a pediatrician who had tested positive for the AIDS virus?
Most thought so - with at least one participant suggesting that, the question of AIDS aside, the doctor couldn't be trusted with children because he was a homosexual. Only a couple of us argued that, because medical evidence shows the risk to the doctor's patients was negligible, the story was unfair.
Was it right for a Nashville newspaper to publish the names and addresses of dozens of men charged with soliciting prostitutes, a misdemeanor?
Was it right for Ohio University's newspaper to publish a photograph of a black student dozing off during a lecture by the author of a book about Martin Luther King Jr.?
Was it right for The Roanoke Times & World-News to publish a story that described, in graphic detail, a failed attempt to free a drowning teen-ager from a wrecked car?
One reporter asked for help with a difficult decision his newspaper is trying to make: Whether to publish a story about a schoolteacher who, social workers say, allowed her boyfriend to molest her child. The boyfriend hasn't been charged with a crime. The commonwealth's attorney says the child is lying - but he's a family friend of the teacher.
We weren't much help on that one.
For some, the ethical dilemmas of journalism are more personal.
An assistant editor who attended the seminar is married to an administrator in a city her newspaper covers. Once a senior editor put her on the spot and asked if her husband had told her how the city planned to handle upcoming protest demonstrations.
She refused to tell the editor what, if anything, she knew. But, she acknowledged during the seminar, as she and her husband move up their career ladders, the conflict between their jobs is sure to grow.
I wish this newspaper's former editorial page editor, Gene Owens, had been at the seminar to talk about his struggle between the obligations of his job and the obligations of his religious faith - and how that led to his resignation earlier this year.
We debated whether it's OK for reporters and editors to contribute money to political candidates, take part in demonstrations or serve on the boards of social service agencies. (Most agreed that it's not.) And we debated whether the same standards should apply to publishers, who have to worry about their newspapers' community responsibilities - and profitablity.
Journalists, of course, aren't the only professionals who wrestle with ethical dilemmas.
But the community usually doesn't have the opportunity to question the decisions a doctor makes in the operating room or a lawyer makes in the courtroom. Anyone who buys a newspaper can second-guess us - and our readers often do.
We need people like Hodges to challenge our explanations - and our excuses. Because we know that responsible journalism requires more than just getting the facts.
by CNB