media whcan testify that thehave fothemselves inhe public prints in ways they didn't want. there's a certain payback already. but you and i know that if valentine's staff ever did that to any member of the press, he'd be strung up by his thumbs. he's already h on the wall now. he's got nothing to lose. general westmoreland, you've sat here quiey and listened to this dialogue. well, i must say i'm turned off by the gestapoactics that you have suggested and apparently practiced. it seems to me this thing can be handled a little more civil-like, a little more delicaly. if when it became very clear that jim valentine was not the man with the moral character that the american people would accept,

th somebody would get in touch with mrs. kirkpatrick, one of his advisers, and say,h, "we strongly recommend "to you, joe, "that you get out of politics. "you're a public figure. "evidence s been aumulated "ireflects on your moral character "and your judgment. "you don't have a chance, "so get out of politics "a go back to harvard law school and reduce your golf handicap." where did you get this evidence? byistening to this forum. yogot it inside the newsper or on the television. that's how u learned. miss garment, shld i be knocked out this ce? should fiedler ha sent out his troo on ? he shouldn't. you shouldn't,

according to older standards. coing tood's standards, you've got to be. you're not dealing with a press problem, i think. we've be blami the press r it a lot of things have been going on and changing our standards-- more media politics, watergate, which chand our notions of the standards of blic rectitude applied to people. women's movement, which changed attitudes towards what was cute when it came to fooling around. and the press starts reflecting those in its pursuit of people. if we want a change back, we have to start talking differently about public figures and wh we have a right to know. ms. ferraro, do i have to get out? your problem is that you had terrific advisers, and you didn't ask advice before you ran off to the cozy condos.

had you come to your kitchen cabinet, they would have said, "behave yourself." if you want it enough, you'll have to play by the rules. you're fair game. be cool, at least until you get elected. scinating. fascinating. s. graham, have the rules changed? i think they have changed for the better. i would say that alan simpson and general westmoreland both really want to know about these people's characters, yet th say we shouldn't bring them this nd of information. one theory is they haven't changed that much. for instance, john sears pointed out that wheas primaries rule out candidates now, the smoke-filled rooms ruled out some of these candidates. some were rud out because of these reasons before they got to the public. so i d't know that this is as new as we think it is.

it's the press' job to inform people and let them make judgments, as has been said. 's not up to us to witold, to use our opinions on what the public should know. we have to tell the public everything reasonable that we know. let's get it-- we didn't, in this hypothetical, didn't rule valentine out. you took yourself out, baseon the advice of the people around you. i'm not quite out it t. so fi'm still there in the cozy condo. i've got debbie over iher room. i' put the lights out in my place, and i'm going to bull my way through. and i emerge 8:00 the next morning heading for the podi to make spee at this meeting. i'm going to see you out in the frontard.

what do you say to me as i come out? good morning. i think i tell the senator that i have been outside his cottage, in a somewhat different circumstce from you, lyle, but i've been outside s cottage. it's apparent to me that he was wi or next to anttractive young woma what were the circumstances? none of your damnusiness. uh... ha ha ! i think at that point, there's no story. is this a woman with whom you have a relationship, with whom you're romantical involved? he's going to press right in. i'll probe a little bit further. i n't have a omach for th. we'll take it further than the first refusal. there's another qution you ask the senator outside.

say, "senator, "it's 9:00 in the morning. "now, i've got a 1:00 deadline. "ie got a story. "i'm going to say you spt the night with debbie spice. "now, i've got a 1:00 deadline. "and i'm going to go with that story "us u tell me right now that you dn' "show me you didn't and get miss spice out here "to atst in her own way "that she didn't spend the night with you. otherwise, i'm gng with that story." are u tellg the truth? in that circumstance, i'm lying to him because i still haven't madear witmy editor that my editor will go with the story. ethics is good for us but not for them? but e thing that needsaying here- what? lying? it needs badly to be saying here that theniverseof es runs with each one of the groups.

there isn't anything that i know of that constitutes a commonly accepted uniform codof ethics when one is engaging in the haphazard enterprise of communicating information. it'sot a codal activity. it's a completely fortuitous, eccentric-- i think it is eccentric. i think you believe it, which is ever more tragic. but you see, senator, one day, someh-- itl be you. i want to be there when you're the guy-- you're the guy they're looking for. how are people going to treat you? i'd love to see how you'd feel if you were treated like you come across. i woulfeel badly about that. how would you feel down here? not your head. you're doing head stuff. i'm talking abou a visceral sensation. it would be awful.

but the question for me as a journalist-- ll, forget that. no. no, no. don't stay o of the feeling world. the question for me as a journalist is, feeling badly as i do, somewhere inside me there's a note of congratulations to the triumph of the other guy that got me. becae that's the-- someone, i d't know whit was, said, "politics ain't beanbag." journalism isn't child's play. when you're dealing th public fair and people who are maneuvering in per relationships, they stand in a position to make a lot more differee than lyle denniston with h pathetic pad and pencil. but truth and ethics still mean something in life. do you think somewhere down deep joe vantine is going to say, "lyle denniston really did a job." no, because joe valentine is not a journalist. joe valentine had not spent 39 years

of joe valentine's life trying to figure out what it is to havthis incredible, incredible opportunity, to be the first kid running down the street to say what i heard. mr. fiedler. let me say this because it troubles me that there's a suggestion here that there's no compassion or human feeling involved in this reporting. i don't agree with that. i think you are nsitive the humaneeling certainly to the pain, the human anguish that you're apt to cause by a story of this kind. and i don't think you expect the other person to say, "nice shot." that doesn't exist. there's a judgment call here because we don't know for certain. we don't have the proof. the question then becomes, do we print it? when do we print it?

we need more information before we can printhis story. and it's not enough to go on just what we've been told. you have to say what is the blic interest, is this relevant, and is it true? these three things, i think, are standards that, internal, we can apply to whether we go after a story like this and print it when we t it. ms. ferraro, you heard mr. denniston. um-hmm. you hear miss fanning. listening to miss fanning, i think that she has approached the problem responsibly. listing to mr. dniston, his comment was that like a kid with a story-- the way he put it was, ou have no idea what the feelinis like." i'm not interested in what the feeling of the reporter is like. i'm inteed in what effect it'll have

on the political system and what t publisher believes is the right of the public to know and the responsibility of the press transfer that infortion to the public. i'm not interested that after 39 years he might get a pulitzer prize. if that's what he's looking for, i think it's unethical. if what he's loong for is to sell his pars, i think that that's unethical if that's the sole goal. if the goais to inform so tt the voting public can make a decision about a leader in this country, then tnk it's an ok eld to go into. i think that's the point that was brought up. t criteria isn't relevant, what's the answer when it comes to the deep private lives of candidates? current activities, past activities.

i el that if you go back 20 or 25 years, if you go not only to the candite, but the spouse of the candidate or the mother or father of the candidate, i think that is totly irrelevt, and i don't think it should be part of the whole picture. if you're lking about what senator valentine was doing, i think that's stupidity and that goes to judgment. that's ok to let the public know at, but i think it's up to the press to exercise their resibility that goes along with that wonderful right these questions go oin newspaper given and telesion officesdment. ad nauseam until you can't get any work done. then we blow a whole sunday doing this. it's not that they're not being addressed. they are addressed constantly. mrs. graham talks about them, i talk about them.

every time we're out on the road covering candidates, "what do you think?" it goes on endlessly. the notion that there's some kind of infernal machine that cranks intoction with no consideration ofhe things-- that it requires w school professors or journalism deans to bring these questions up-- is absolutely preposterous. i don't think at any journalist here is motivated by selling newspapers. i don't think that is motivation r anyone working in this busiss publishers maybe, but that's not e primary motivation. that's not the primary motivation of people working in this business. i must say i find it extremely interesting to think about the way this drama has unfolded this afternoon

with regard to mr. denniston, whom i often read with enjoyment, whbegathe afternoo by saying he didn't socialize with political types because he didn't want st of know thethat well. and we end the afternoon with a sort of having de... the object ofhe dehumanizatio of the polical candidate finally followed b the sort of trh of the... great feelings of triumph over the exposure... along the way with a lot of lying in bushes and peepg over transoms and listening at ear, yoknow, keyholes. i think that's terribly shocking. i think that journalm,

just extremely important. nothing is mo impornt in a free ciety than a free press. but it is also part of the society, and if we're going to cherish rights like privacy, then they apply to journalism as well. and if we're going to ask supreme court justices that they honor rights tivacy, if we're going to look for in our judges not just for respect for law, but for compassion as well, surely is not too much to expect that journalists, especially leading, terribly influential, powerful journalists in powerful media with a right to make and break man officials, also have a little compassion. into yr office walks michael marsh. kind of a weird-looking fellow-- outdoor boots ancamoufge gear

and funny-looking glasses. he says, "i'm an active member "of the audubon society. "i just happened to be up on lake ardor, "fming the night activities of the long-winged bat..." "with very high spe film. "all of the sudden, i heard some splashing. "i pointed my camera over there. "lo and behold, when i got back "and developed the films, here's what i've got." what have you got? you look and there's joe valentine. by himself? no. he's swimming with someone els can you see who he's swimming with? a young woman. they got any clothes on? can't quite tell that. they're swimming, after all.

are you trying to sell me these photos? yes. no dice. i'm not interested why not? because i think there is an ethical line, and i think that the... in the first place, this does not prove that they've spent the night in the room together. but it's prty good. it's pretty titillating. there's a question in my mind as to ether or not the line has been crossed. ethicall buyg photos likeha in a situation like this is not ethical. it's not in the public interest. it in the public titillatn. i'm not in the titillation business. mr. denniston, would you buy those photos? i wouldn't buy them. you'd do it yourself, and you won't pay mike marsh, who's out there taking pictures? en m. fanning said it's unethical, i assu she was speaking

out of her subjective ethical perceptions. my subjective ethical perceptions are in substtialetail different from hers, but in this one respect, they're not. i don't pay foinformation. mr. wallace, is there something unethical about buying these photographs? i wouldn't buy the photographs. i don't think there's anything unethical if it's fascinating informatio if we're talking about these photographs, i thinth're almost worthless, but i can see circumstances under which i would y for information. if t photos were better... if the photos were... if maybe you could see the senator in a state of undress. the photos by themselves mean absolutely nothing. obviously, the photos could be, the context of an interesting television piece, useful, but they a tt g in the context

of a much larger piece. speak mrs. fanning about ethics. she thinks it's unethical to buy them. why unethical? first, a purchase. secondly, it still doesn't prove anything. it does not prove they spent the night together. 's highlsuggesti, t it'snly estive. it's not proof. agreed, but we're talking about the hics of making the purchase. i simply disagree about the ethics of making... print and television, time immemorial, have paid for information. . jennings? would buthem just to keep them out of the competitive arena. we're talking about two diffent th-- technique of covere and blatio i'd buy them so that cbs and nbc didn't get them. i'put em inhe files. wh i'm misng is some sense thathere's ankind of standard erging.

am i wrong about that? miss garment, if we were to sit down a grouof journalists, would it be possible to evolve a standa that would govern the y thpress now covers candidates in tms of their private lives? not much of one. journalism is not a profession, it's a trade. it's very open to the influence of t society aund it and the changes in the society around it. opinio owhat was good practice, you'd findhanging over time. mrs. graham, ithere any hical stdard here? there is,dhanging but it is not eier a uniform body or a uniform set of principles that we can all set up and abide by. each organization searches its souls, and i would not like to leave this format without saying we are bothered, we are sensitive

to the people we're covering. we do worry about these things. and each...each... different company sets i own standards, does supervise them, andoese. doesand it really bothers me-- alan bothers me becae i admire him and care a great deal about what he thin. and rry ferro, too. it bothers me thateople hate the press and hate what we're doing not for oursves, but because of what that implies about what themit do inhe wayer judicial onion or legislative restraints or not caring about our freedo. hope tdon't thin we're initive and uncaring and don't think about ethics becausi think we all do. can i say-- i don't hate the press.

i don't either. ms. ferraro. what ieel is n... am a suprter of the first amendment rights. that's o of our basic freedoms. but what i am concerned about, and it's a concern that com out of personal expeence, is that sometimes the press reaches over that very fine line, which you haveescribed, and takes their rights that they have and foets their responsibility to the public and, i think, to the public officials they're covering. and when thecross that line and don't exert responsibility, they start moving in and affecting the ivate lives and the privacy rights of the individual, which jeane has said, where you give up those rights of privacy when you run as a public official.

we shouldn't have to. not that i hate the press. frdom of theress is a basic freom in this untry. i think you have a responsibility. along with the right goes that responsibility, and you've got to exercise it. we do exercise it. we don't pnt everything we know. do think about people's privacy times have changed. we didn't used to publish things thatid impinge on public performance of pubc people we did not print the fact that the head of the armed services committee was drunk on the floor of congress. we didn't print that. we now do. we try to confine ourselves to the private iues that affect public performance. sometimes, i'm sure, we probably go wrong. i sure agree that we make mistakes,

d we try not to, but it isn't that we aren't thinking about it. senator simpson. never have i ever, yokn, said i hate the ess. that is not me. i amend thathrase. it's important to see when we criticize the press that we don't hate e press because you ther us up. i just came through this fascinating experience, and whateane is saying is so real. all you hato do was watch the bork hearings. there were two things. they were omnipotent. privacy, privacy, privacy. while that was going on, meckle-head was picking up copies of his videotape renta down in the little shop downhere in washington, d.c., and published what judge robert bork had been watching

in his veo rentals for the last two years. how wod anof you like that? that's real life. the other one was that robert bork failed the test because he didn't show compassion. he was too much of a mechanic. hepe his time in tecue. he was a technician. they would have gone for him. he would have been a good man if he had a little bit of milk of hum ndness. he would have been all right. isn't that fascinating? but t then do we get that out of this remarkable professi. i don't spend time thinking about ways to do in the press. that's the way it is, and i accepted that, but for heen's sak the essence of the right to privacy is just what griffen bell id it was,

the right to be left alone. and you'd like that, every one of you. in a democcy, public discourse is a vital cmodity. we all believe that the public has a right to know a great deal about those who would presume to hd hi office. as individuals, we also recognize the right to personal privacy. where journalists aw th fine line, then, a crical ethical choice for the past 10 weeks, we've explored some of the toughest ethical dilemmas confronting our society, from the operatingoom to the courthous from the battlefie to the boardroom, from the white house to the streets in our cities. itas socrates who taught us that the uxamined life is not worth living. our purpose in this series has been to examine modern american life to look at the agonizing decisions that we face

every day of our lives as professionals, as citizens, and as human beings. we believe that although this series now ends, that examination n go on in your living rooms. captioning made possible by the annenberg°cpb project captioning performed by the national captioning institute, inc. captions copyright 1989 the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york public performance of captions prohibited without permission of national captioning institute this has been a prodtion of... in association with... columbia university seminars on media & society is solely sponsible for thcontent of thiprogram.

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