I appreciated the comments of John and Karen on journalistic ethics Monday. An excellent topic to bring up, especially in the wild and wooly blogosphere we Roomies inhabit.
I fully agree with John and Karen on the perception of conflict and the need for ethical guidelines. Thank you both as well for pointing out the muddy part of the road where the unethical intermingles freely with the legal. I hold to John’s view in certain circumstances — for example, it was standard practice in my military service for junior officers to write their own effectiveness reviews, including endorsements of three superior officers. I learned to write the style and content which would gain the colonel’s signature; once signed, the authorship was of no consequence, since the colonel had taken personal responsibility for the document. Under Old Testament law, a husband was allowed to nullify a contract taken by his wife on the day he heard of it. If he left it in place, it not only stood, but he himself had assumed the responsibility for it. It’s an old principle.
But I also see Karen’s point. Certainly there are situations where the professor, commander, manager, etc., appropriates the credit for work which is substantially the product of others. Karen’s right that if the substance of the product did not come from the presumed author, one has to question whether there is a misrepresentation on the wing.
However, I think the distinction also must be made to recognize the nature of the product. We don’t hestitate to give Mozart sole credit for his Requiem, although he died in mid-composition and the work was completed by his student. We acclaim the genius of various artists who, on full disclosure, only executed the central figures of their work, leaving the background scenery for their apprentices. The brilliant tactics and strategy of Napoleon Bonaparte are rightly attributed to himself, although the loss of a trusted executive officer who was adept at translating Napoleon’s strategy into coherent unit orders may have been the key to the Waterloo debacle.
In each case, the principal value of the work in view is definitely the work of the master — the composition, the strategy, the master plan — while the supporting framework may have been built by the lesser lights surrounding him. That’s why in some respects, Reagan’s “City on a Hill” speech, written by a [very talented] staff member, can be favorably compared to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address written longhand by the president himself — in neither case was the purpose to display the president’s literary prowess. Presidents are elected to present a vision and sound the clarion to lead the country forward; adopting the most effective words available is simply selecting a tool for the job at hand, which is leadership, not literature.
In contrast, an commentator is presenting an analysis or opinion, the value of which is largely based on his own reputation for wisdom. A reporter can present the facts without judgment, but the analyst is making connections and surmising their importance based precisely on his or her judgment. That’s why the ethical bar is higher — because when a commentator like Williams is co-opted by a cash incentive, then he has traded on his reputation and called his judgment – or at least, his disinterestedness — into question.
Ultimately, that judgment is the commentator’s stock in trade, and if his virtue is available for rent, then it’s no longer virtue. While Williams may have supported NCLB quite apart from any compensation received, it doesn’t smell right, and reputation is, after all, a matter of perception as much as fact.
