GETTING IT RIGHT : The ethics of journalism.

Anthrax in the newsroom arouses journalists' attention. If death concentrates the mind, then terrorist attacks can bring to awareness the importance of journalism's obligations as a profession. Yes, a commitment to seek the truth and accurately inform the community can be dangerous. Courageous journalists have been assassinated (in Ireland and elsewhere) and repressive regimes regularly punish and imprison troublesome reporters (Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Angola most recently). Dictators and oligarchs don't take kindly to freedom of the press.

Other dangers can imperil journalism in rich democratic societies like the United States. Megamedia corporations bent on making profits distort the role of the press. "Commercialized speech" and the growth of "infotainment" contribute to a society amusing itself to death. Observers have bemoaned the decrease of serious, accurate news coverage, without which civil deliberation declines.

Citizens need in-depth reporting to participate in a democracy and to make wise decisions. Profit-centered journalism treats readers and viewers as private consumers. A journalism of assertion and celebrity opinion may give customers what they want and so drive up market share while driving out serious news programs.

Other subtle obstacles are built into the nature of journalism. The competitive drive for artistic creative expression that grips and holds attention can get out of hand. Journalists are partly artists and partly skeptical scientists who must avoid bias and errors through conscientious cross-checking and verification of information. Tabloids tend to indulge in hype, rumor, innuendo, and other entertaining gossip. TV shows also falsify truth when they set up debates between protagonists representing extreme positions. Enhancing the dramatic value of a show does a disservice to the fact that most issues are not black or white but require patience and perseverance to address.

Highly professional journalists may find it easy not to misrepresent facts, lie, libel, slander, or indulge in conscious bias. But other temptations await. A creative journalist may begin to focus on his or her own reactive sensibilities to events rather than on the news. Artists make up narratives and scenarios in order to convey "higher truths," but journalists cannot succumb to the lure of fictive embellishments.

The competitive urge to get the story first (as in cutting-edge scientific research) tempts journalists to trim ethical corners. And since error is inevitable, journalism must be ready to revise and to correct.

Another siren call in highbrow journalism invites settling down comfortably in the country's elite establishments. But how can journalists fulfill their watchdog function when they have become insiders and joined the powerful folk they are reporting on? It's difficult to be a voice for those without a voice if you move only among the well-endowed, articulate classes. Many smart, gifted journalists come from the same Ivy yards as the leaders of society. Old-boy and old-girl networks produce bias from the blinders that come with privilege. In America, educated talented people go in and out the window between journalism, government, and the foundations. It takes courage to take an outsider's viewpoint and to criticize your once-and-future colleagues--even if you retain the ability to notice problems in the status quo.

Secular liberal elites have been in the saddle so long that they don't understand "the others." Religious believers, for example, especially the orthodox faithful, are thought of as odd. Ethnic groups in which traditional bonds of kinship and attachment trump individual autonomy also appear alien to mobile, modern types schooled in rational self-interest and cost-benefit analysis. Elite journalists can miss the news beneath their noses. Only now are we hearing about the power of religious motivation--as part of the national catch-up course offered on Islam.

Are there other lacunae out there waiting to be discovered? Yes, in an increasingly globalized world, U.S. journalism will have to do a better job reporting on international science, technology, market forces, and ecological crises. The advent of bioterrorism points up how little attention Americans have paid to plagues, pandemics, and the toxic pollutions of poverty in the third world. An isolationist stance in fortress America can no longer play in Peoria. Perhaps the maturing of American journalism has been jump-started with the September 11 disaster. Journalism has responded well to the tragedy. The public has been given the truth in a responsible way. Rumors have been labeled, and compassion and competence have been displayed. Pictures of people plunging from the towers or of burned bloody body parts were generally not depicted--for both moral and aesthetic reasons.

Perhaps some survivors and mourning relatives have been somewhat exploited. In response, guidelines for interviewing trauma victims without inflicting more harm have been devised by journalists and psychologists working together: get informed consent, try to provide privacy, treat victims with dignity and not as fodder for a story.

Now, tough ethical calls await journalism's coverage of the new "war." Here again the public's need to know may be in conflict with government interests. As with all moral decisions, no simple-minded formulas resolve moral dilemmas. In serious journalism, moral discernment and courageous prudence will have to be the ultimate "reliable source" for the story.