The Ethical Journalist. Gene Foreman
How a Society Instills Ethics
Through the centuries, societies have passed down ethical precepts from one generation to the next. Over time, through a process called socialization, the new generation absorbs the values of the community. Louis A. Day identified four main conduits for transmitting values, in this chronological sequence: family, peer groups, role models, and societal institutions.
Think about how each group influenced you as you grew up. You should be aware, too, that the process continues throughout adulthood.
Consider the influence of family. When parents urge toddlers to share with their siblings or friends, they get their first exposure to the idea of considering the needs of others. Not all lessons learned in the home are positive, of course. Day points out that a parent who writes a phony excuse to a teacher saying that “Johnny was sick yesterday” signals to the child that lying is permissible, even though the parent would never state such a thing.
Next are peer groups. As children grow older, the values instilled in the home are exposed, for good or ill, to the influence of friends in the neighborhood and in school. There is a powerful urge to “go with the crowd.”
Then there are role models. They could be famous people, living or dead, such as athletes or musicians. Or they could be people one knows personally, such as teachers and ministers, or drug dealers. What these disparate individuals have in common is the fact that they occupy a prominent place in the minds of impressionable young people who want to emulate them.
The fourth source of influence is societal institutions. Drama, television, and the cinema transmit ethical standards – as well as standards that some would say are nonethical. When you graduate and go into the workforce, you will find that companies, too, are influential societal institutions. “Within each organization there is a moral culture, reflected both in written policies and the examples set by top management, that inspires the ethical behavior of the members,” Day wrote. 13
In the process of socialization, members of the new generation learn that benefits flow from living in a society in which people generally behave morally, meaning they treat each other civilly, they keep promises, they help a person in distress, and so on. These are moral duties that the young learn to embrace. They also become aware that there are consequences for violating the group culture. These consequences, depending on the seriousness of the violation, range from being snubbed to being criminally prosecuted.
Though they still have moral duties that other humans have, people in certain occupations are permitted to function by different standards in some respects. The rights of the individual prevail over the needs of the community in conversations between lawyer and client, doctor and patient, minister and parishioner. In making the exceptions, society recognizes that those conversations need to be extremely candid. Indeed, through “shield laws” adopted in nearly every state, journalists are given similar protection to keep secret their conversations with confidential sources. This protection, however, is far from absolute, and it does not exist in federal law.
Values Shape Personal Choices
Values shape how a person will react when confronted with a choice. Josephson defines values as “core beliefs or desires that guide or motivate attitudes and actions.” 14 Our values, Josephson has written, “are what we prize and our value system is the order in which we prize them. Because it ranks our likes and dislikes, our value system determines how we will behave in certain situations. … The values we consistently rank higher than others are our core values, which define character and personality.” 15 These values may or may not be ethical values.
Ethical values directly relate to beliefs about what is right and proper: honesty, promise‐keeping, fairness, compassion, respect for the privacy of others.
Nonethical values relate not to moral duty but to desire: wealth, status, happiness. Josephson labels them nonethical (not unethical) because they are ethically neutral.
Pursuing nonethical values is not morally wrong so long as ethical values are not violated in the process. 16 Nonethical values that a journalist might hold include selling more newspapers, raising broadcast ratings, or increasing a website’s traffic count – values achieved mainly by getting interesting stories ahead of the competition. Those are worthy values, but the crucial question is how they are achieved.
The controversy over abortion, a historically divisive domestic issue in the United States, is illustrative here because it reflects the core values of people on both sides. To the abortion opponent, the core value is the sanctity of life, and that person believes life begins at conception. To the abortion‐rights advocate, the core value is the autonomy of the individual, and that person believes the state has no right to tell a woman what she must do with her body.
Ethical Dilemma: Right vs. Right
Inevitably, people face situations in which their ethical values conflict. The result is an ethical dilemma. People confronted with a dilemma must weigh the conflicting ethical values and choose one over the other.
A classic hypothetical story devised by the ethics scholar Lawrence Kohlberg illustrates the ethical dilemma: Heinz’s wife is dying from cancer. A druggist has a life‐saving drug but wants $2,000 for it. Heinz, who has only $1,000, pleads with the druggist to sell it for that amount. When the druggist refuses, Heinz has to decide between ethical values – honesty (not stealing the drug) or compassion (not letting his wife die). Choosing one ethical value means that he must violate the other. In Kohlberg’s story, Heinz breaks into the store and steals the drug. Kohlberg asks: “Should the husband have done that? Was it right or wrong? … If you think it is morally right to steal the drug, you must face the fact that it is legally wrong.” 17
The false ethical dilemma
The ethical dilemma, pitting one ethical value against another, is distinguished from what Josephson calls a false ethical dilemma. In such equations only one side has an ethical value. On the other side is a nonethical value. The clear choice for the ethical person is to reject the nonethical value and act on the ethical value, to “choose ethics over expediency.” 18
This is not to say that such choices are easy. To the contrary, these choices often result in self‐sacrifice. In journalism, for example, a reporter might have to give up doing a story that will raise broadcast ratings (a nonethical value) if it requires invading someone’s privacy (an ethical value). This underscores the point made at the beginning of this chapter – that doing the right thing requires action, and it can entail a heavy cost.
When Virginia Gerst quit her job over a principle and John Cruickshank acknowledged to advertisers that they had been shortchanged, they were making sacrifices in order to do the right thing. To do nothing, to go along, might have been an easier choice – but it would have been wrong. Gerst and Cruickshank were confronted not with an ethical dilemma (which Rushworth Kidder labels a right‐versus‐right choice) but with a false ethical dilemma (right versus wrong). This observation takes nothing away from the courage of either Gerst or Cruickshank.
Ethical Decision: Complex Process
The person who makes a decision in a given situation is called the moral agent. To be an effective moral agent, you can’t decide on a whim. Clear thinking is needed. Ultimately, your decision must be one that you can defend as having been rationally chosen by a caring individual. Josephson described the complexity of the process:
Most decisions have to be made in the context of economic, professional, and social pressures which can sometimes challenge our ethical goals and conceal or confuse the moral issues. In addition, making ethical choices