Rewarding Ethival Journalism–Whatever That Is

If a newspaper risks a trash tort for the sake of a good story that there’s no other way to get–could that be the highest form of ethics? I asked Bukro. I was thinking of CBS’s recent decision to scrub a 60 Minutes interview with a whistleblowing tobacco industry insider who’d signed a confidentiality agreement with Brown & Williamson. Although the network’s decision may have been prudent, no one was praising CBS for exercising principle above and beyond.

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“If you can make the case that that was the only way to get information that was in the public interest,” Bukro replied, “and you gave time and thought and arrived at that decision and it was not a kneejerk decision, I think that could then win an ethics award.” But Bukro pointed out that according to the Wall Street Journal, CBS had promised the insider not to run the interview without his permission. By backing down the network was simply keeping its word.

The Headline Club asked Business and Professional People in the Public Interest BPI to join it in establishing the Ethics in Journalism Award. (It’ll be given in four categories–news and commentary, newspapers and radio-TV–at the Lisagor dinner next spring.) “Our board thought it was a little different,” BPI’s Sherry Goodman told me, “but on the other hand, we have been not only a public-interst law organization for 25 years but a public policy center, and it seemed appropriate to be involved in something as important as ethical choice in covering news.”

There was nothing “kinder, gentler” about Zorn’s old-fashioned crusade. He’d simply worked his ass off trying to save the life of a powerless and victimized man. Zorn deserves every honor there is, and if he’s the archetype of a winner, the Ethics in Journalism Award should enjoy a long and distinguished life.

The last time I looked in on Babble, Chicago’s ebulliently tasteless gay weekly was being hounded into extinction. One A.J. Bruno, who’d sent in some pictures of himself that showed up in a nasty parody of a modeling agency’s book, had gone to court. Plaintiff suffered “personal contempt, ridicule and humiliation,” said Bruno’s suit.

“I went to the bank today and got all my money back,” Sizelove told me afterward. “So I guess now they have to start all over.”