May 15, 2003
ETHICS IN ACTION
Editor of Times Tells Staff He Accepts Blame for Fraud (Jacques Steinberg, New York Times, 5/15/2003)The Times meeting was closed to news coverage. As a result, Mr. Steinberg, The Times's media writer, did not attend it.
In the Times's view, apparently, journalistic ethics require that no one with first-hand knowledge report on this event. Only second-hand knowledge will do.
I don't read the Times but I suppose that during the Iraq war, they didn't allow embedded journalists to report what they themselves saw, only what soldiers said they saw. And at White House press conferences, they don't report what Ari Fleischer says, but only what other journalists say he says.
This is a good rule, I think, because how can we possibly trust first-hand observations? Second-hand accounts are much more reliable. I recommend that television journalists adopt a similar rule. Rather than film events as they happen, they should film spectators describing what is happening.
It is good to see that, despite the Jayson Blair episode, the Times is maintaining its standards.