June 01, 2004

Journalism as a Value Judgement
Posted by Jon Henke

Via John Rogers (who has his own take) I find this Den Beste essay on reporter bias, in which he cites this story....

A philosophical debate is hosted at a small college. Peter Jennings (ABC) and Mike Wallace (CBS' 60 Minutes) are questioned about journalistic ethics. Jennings is presented with a hypothetical situation: he is given exclusive access to accompany enemy soldiers as they ambush and slaughter American soldiers in war. Given prior knowledge of the attack plans, what would Jennings do? He answers that he would try in some way to tell the Americans that an attack was coming to save American lives.

Wallace is appalled and he talks about the importance of not interfering in the story. Jennings recants, saying that Wallace is right: a reporter should just stand aside and let the attack happen.

Steven Den Beste responds, writing that "I am disgusted by the Wallace answer, but in fact his position is defensible. It's analogous to the job done by defense attorneys in criminal prosecutions."

As Den Beste says, there are arguments to be made for each side. Whether tis nobler in the mind to report the slings and arrows of war, or to take up arms against them, and by opposing save our own. To report....or to engage. (with apologies to William)

In an abstract sense, it is impossible to make a decisive and universal judgement on the matter. There are degrees of utility in between either absolute.

In a personal sense, though, it is a very easy decision. All a reporter needs to decide is where his values lay. Is he a journalist first, or an American? If he is a journalist first - and there is not necessarily any shame to that decision - then his responsibility is to the story first. If he is an American first, then his responsibility is to his country.

One can blather about "integrity" and "standards" for as long as one likes, but at the end of the day a person has to decide whether he values his journalism or his countrymen most.

And a similar judgement has to be made by the consumer of that news. While we may despise a journalist who sits idly by while his countrymen die......we're also none too fond of journalists who "get personally involved", who "let their biases get in the way".

Not a lot of cost-free choices, are there? Well, there never are.

ADDENDUM (Dale): One of my favorite memories of this particular program, which was, if I remember, moderated by Harvard's Larry Tribe, was a Marine colonel who was part of the roundtable. After hearing Wallace's comments, he responded, to the best of my recollection,

Well, two weeks later, Mr. Wallace will be visiting my firebase, and when he leaves his helicopter is gonna be brought down by enemy fire. And he's gonna expect my marines to risk their lives to save his because he's an American.

He's not an American. He's a reporter.

But we'll do it anyway, and some of my marines will give up their lives to save a reporter.

And he looked right at Mr. Wallace when he said it.

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Comments

I wonder what their answers would be if the hypothetical were to have all politics removed. Say the journalist was interviewing some well-known crazy guy, and this guy was actively plotting to murder some random person. Would the journalist warn the target, or would he sit back and "not interfere with the story?"

If the journalists would warn the target in this case, why wouldn't they warn US soldiers in the other case?

Posted by: Steverino at June 1, 2004 08:19 AM

I always knew I could never be a lawyer, because I knew I could never take a case I didn't personally believe in.

Apparently, for the same reason, I couldn't be a journalist either.

Posted by: Chris of Dangerous Logic at June 1, 2004 08:50 AM

Jon presents a false dichotomy. There is no reason someone couldn't be a good journalist (or lawyer) and a good American.

"Lifeboat ethics" is sophomoric.

Posted by: George at June 1, 2004 09:34 AM

I'm not sure where you got this idea. I didn't say you could not be both - just that, at some specific times, you have to pick one or the other.

Just as I can be a good father, AND a good employee...sometimes, I have to decide whether to go to work or stay home with my child. I can be both, but sometimes I have to prioritize one or the other.

Posted by: Jon Henke at June 1, 2004 09:45 AM

Jon; I have to take issue with an assumption you're making, here. You say:

"In an abstract sense, it is impossible to make a decisive and universal judgement on the matter. There are degrees of utility in between either absolute. "

Untrue. I would suggest, Jon, that there's a serious problem with the idea that everything is always in shades of grey, an idea that you seem to have signed onto, here. I dare to suggest to you that there are nothing but absolutes... black and white. Now before you start calling me crazy, consider, please;

Grey does not exist as a color, but rather a very complex pattern of black and white spots, which are often very small and arranged in very complex and bewildering patterns. If you're seeing grey, you're not close enough to your question, to understand it's true nature.

Put another way, All questions, broken down far enough can be anwsered in binary fashion.... black or white. If all you see is grey, you're not looking close enough...a nd you don't have an answer.

A hypothetical for this would be the question of killing people and if it should be allowed to do so. There are certainly different answers to the question, but most of the differences in the spectrum of answers you'll get to the questions hinge on the conditionals.

Offhanded and admittedly extreme examples:

Killing someone beause they stole my parking spot might not fir in with some people's idea of a justified killing.

On the other hand, let's say we have a kidnapper who has a gun to a victim's head, threatening to kill his hostage if he's not allowed safe passage out of the area. I suspect most people would agree that taking out such a slimeball would be an appropriate action.

These are larger pixels of black and white. There are many smaller pixels that create a more bewildering picture when viewed from afar. I'm sure you can think of such hypothetical questions on your own. When these pixels of black and white are summed, they then create a clearer answer to the question at hand.

Someone using the phrase "Shades of grey" is an admission that the issue at hand is a complex one. When the answer STOPS at "shades of grey" it's an admission that the speaker really isn't realy interested in finding the answer, and perhaps that they benefit from the question continuing to exist, unanswered.

Short version, and perhaps a little brutal:

'Shades of grey' is intelectually vapid; the lazy way out, and possibly the corrupt way.

Posted by: Bithead at June 1, 2004 10:29 AM

Bit: while I understand your point, I don't think it's applicable. We're not dealing with One Single Principle to which we can either adhere or not, but with conflicting principles.

In such a case, you, I, anybody will have to weigh the value you attack to either principle.

I'd argue that there is a legitimacy to moral relativism, but in the universal sense...not in the individual sense. An individual can either adhere to whatever principles he chooses, or not. The universe, on the other hand, allows individuals to choose among a wide variety of "principles".
....some of which, we reject. Others, we support. Nature, however, makes no moral judgements about those moral judgements. Only we do.

Posted by: Jon Henke at June 1, 2004 10:42 AM

"I am disgusted by the Wallace answer, but in fact his position is defensible. It's analogous to the job done by defense attorneys in criminal prosecutions."

The only way this is correct would be if the defense attorney help in the assasination of a prosecution witness.

Posted by: Curt Mitchell at June 1, 2004 10:55 AM

A point of the original Fallows article, not being discussed, is that while defense lawyers, soldiers, and Princes of Denmark apparently agonize over their professions' moral dilemmas; while journalists seem to think such dilemmas don't even exist.

Posted by: Pouncer at June 1, 2004 11:06 AM

I would also feel Wallace's answer was defensible- if journalists were robots instead of human. Journalists, by their very presence, alter the "story" that Wallace prizes above all else. And as we all know, Wallace- who admits he would gladly see Americans slain so he can get his moment of blood-red reflected glory on the TV- doesn't hold to his "non-inteference" prime directive all the time. Just when it suits him.

This is why I abandoned journalism after getting my degree. This sickening pretense of being above it all, of being "objective" of going after some golden god of TRUTH is a load of crap. It felt morally and intellectually wrong to me.

There is no "story"

The story is what you choose to cover, when you choose to cover it.

Journalists get the "story" they want to cover.

Posted by: shark at June 1, 2004 11:38 AM

Jon;

Bit: while I understand your point, I don't think it's applicable. We're not dealing with One Single Principle to which we can either adhere or not, but with conflicting principles.

Aha! You're halfway there, already, and don't even know it. Let's apply the pixelation idea to the question at hand as a demonstration, thus perhaps shedding light on the bigger more weighty question...

There are no conflicting principles, here. And the question of the subject's being a journalist or an American first is also irrelevant, at least insofar as the question has been addressed thusfar.

Look at it this way; I doubt it can be argued that any nation in history can claim to have a press that operates with greater freedom than the United States. Given that, then I submit it's quote possible, and in fact needful, to make a a decisive and universal judgement on the matter presented to Jennings and Wallace. Given defense of the United states and it's cultural values is a tool toward the maintainance of a free press, indeed, the only tool over time shown to work, the answer about letting the attack as posed occur, becomes fairly well black and white, doesn't it?

The problem for the press in making this connection is their hate for America is so great, so insidious, that they cannot admit to themselves that they would not exist as 'the press' without the United States.

Posted by: Bithead at June 1, 2004 12:13 PM

ADDENDUM:

And, therefore, one could argue that the position taken by Wallace and belatedly by Jennings, is self-defeating.

And Dale; Your memory of that interview is right online with my own. and lends some weight to my comments previous.

Posted by: Bithead at June 1, 2004 01:10 PM

We have two major disconnects here:
1: "There are no conflicting principles, here."

- - -I disagree. One can hold, as Principle, that it is important to be utterly Neutral - to be nothing more than a transcriber of events - in order to be a proper journalist. One can also hold that, if they are given access to such events, it is a point of integrity to respect the contract between the reporter and the subject. After all, he would not be given access without the agreement that he report, rather than participate - and, presumably, he agreed.

Tough call. Do you refuse to report, knowing you will be privy to information that you feel unable to withold? Or do you participate and withold information? In either case, you accomplish nothing for the US.

In the former case, though, you can at least report.

Alternately, you could make the argument that it is perfectly acceptable to give your word, knowing full well you have no intention of keeping it. As a combatant, that's socially acceptable. As a journalist, I'm not so sure.

In any event, at the end of the day, you HAVE to decide which action is more in keeping with your integrity. And we, the consumers, have to decide which character we prefer.

Posted by: Jon Henke at June 1, 2004 01:23 PM

But think, Jon, about the easoning they give; They'll claim when allowing our theoretical attack to occur, that they're doing so for the purpose of keeping the press free and independant.

However, as I think I've demonstrated the action we're talking about can be nothing but counter productive to that end.

It should be noted that what you're describing is a political judgement... and I think we both know which way the press as it now is, will lean.

And by the way, Jon; has anyone mentioned the lives being lost so the journalist can claim nuetraility? Are we being mindful that these poeple being killed are ostensibly the very people the journalist proposes to 'serve'?

Posted by: Bithead at June 1, 2004 01:58 PM

Oops. I forgot to list our 2nd disconnect:

2: "The problem for the press in making this connection is their hate for America is so great, so insidious..."

- - -I don't think it's worth arguing, because people generally have very solidified views on whether there is a "media bias", but I disagree with that view vehemently.

I concur that there is a liberal media bias. But there is also a conservative media bias. The problem is that we have reams of anecdotal data, even correlative data....but that data points in both directions, depending on which side is making the argument.

I've no doubt that biases invade objective journalism, but I don't think it's nearly as one-sided or "insidious" as you seem to think.

My specific opinion is more complicated than that, of course, and I need to put it into a post one day.

"They'll claim when allowing our theoretical attack to occur, that they're doing so for the purpose of keeping the press free and independant.

- - -Perhaps. Or, they may simply say they're doing so to keep themselves "free and independent" in regards to that story. It's a marginal judgement.

And we are free to evaluate whether their judgement fits with our own value system.

Posted by: Jon Henke at June 1, 2004 02:08 PM

Not if they want to continue calling themselves Americans.

Because that's really what it comes down to, isn't it.... which value they hold higher?

Posted by: Bithead at June 1, 2004 03:40 PM

If a reporter doesn't feel he's an american first in regards to his job, I wouldn't have a problem with a limited form of citizenship for them in that case :)

If Journalists don't think they can combine the 2- being Americans and being reporters - then I chalk it up to an absolute failure of journalism schools. Because you know what? It's absolutly NOT being some sort of compromised cheerleader if you warn US troops of an impending attack. It's not a betrayal of journalism. Letting Americans die IS a betrayal however.

What if Mike Wallace knew there was an imminent terror attack, one that would put his family in danger? Something makes me think he would find a way to warn Americans then.

Saying that you have to remain "objective to the story" is simply a way to ease your conscience. We have bad journalism today because our journalists have this morally bankrupt non-value system. Journo. schools need to teach a new course, called "Journalism for Human Beings"

Posted by: shark at June 1, 2004 04:29 PM

What if Mike Wallace knew there was an imminent terror attack, one that would put his family in danger? Something makes me think he would find a way to warn Americans then.

And the question also needs be asked; what if there were a liberal in the WH?

Posted by: Bithead at June 1, 2004 05:49 PM

Indeed. I'll be satisfied with his answer really when he states that he would let his family die by "letting the attack happen", as a good reporter is supposed to do by his lights.

If anything, what his answer shows is a contempt- or at least disregard- for American soldiers, a not uncommon attitude in our country's newsrooms. Sure, let some soldiers die, we have to get "the story"

Well, good. Let Wallace's family die so we can get "the story"

Posted by: shark at June 1, 2004 06:43 PM

Well put, Shark.
Lemme toss this question to the room;
Let's remove the role of the reporter from Mr. Wallace and Mr. Jennings for a moment. (And for the same moment, let's forget that Jennings was at the time of the interview in question, not an American citizen.)

Now, let's say that my some stroke of bad luck, the two of them came across information that an attack is going to occurr on Americans in some foreign country. Let's assume further that for whatever reason, they decide not to give this information to the proper authority.

Are there consequences for this non-act?

Now, shift the scene. Move the attack to these shores. Same scenario, same question.

Posted by: Bithead at June 1, 2004 10:55 PM