Page:The Practice of the Kansas Code of Ethics for Newspapers.pdf/7

Rh sciousness of his personal responsibility.

(2) The publication of the rumors and common gossips or the assump- tions of a reporter relative to a suspect pending his arrest or the final culmina- tion of his trial. A staff of reporters is not a detective agency, and the right of a suspect to a fair and impartial trial is often confounded by a reporter 's practise of printing every ill-founded rumor of which he gets wind.

Indecencies. Classification: for the sake of clearness and order, crimes with which we will be concerned may be divided into those which offend against the Public Trust (such as bribery, defalcation, or embezzlement by a public official) ; those which offend against Private Institutions or Em- ployers (which are also often defalca- tions and betrayals of confidence) ; and crimes which offend against Private Morality most often centering around the family relation.

(1) In dealing with the suspicions against Public Officials or trustees we urge that Only Facts put in their True Relation and records be used in the news reports.

(2) In dealing with the suspicions against agents of private institutions facts alone put in their true relation should again be used.

(3) In dealing with the offenses against private morality we should refuse to print any record of the matter, however true, until the warrant has been filed or the arrest made, and even then our report should contain only an epitome of the charges by the plaintiff and the answers by the defendant, preferably secured from their respective attorneys.

No society gossips or scandals, however true, should ever be published concerning such cases.

However prominent the principles, offenses against private morality should never receive first page position and their details should be eliminated as much as possible.

Certain crimes against private morality which are revolting to our finer sensibilities should be ignored

entirely ; however in the event of their having become public with harmful exaggeration we may make an elemen- tary statement, couched in the least suggestive language.

In no case should the reckless daring of the suspect be lionized.

(4) Except when the suspect has es- caped his picture should never be printed.

Naturally the news element has the greatest public interest.

In regard to the condemning of untruthful statements, there has been an advance since the adoption of the Code. There is now practically no use of fake illustrations and fake inter- views. However, interviews are still published in Kansas, just as in other states, which violate the requirement in the Code that only exact quotations be used in quotation marks.

In the matter of injustice in the handling of news, the Code has a comprehensive statement. I believe that the small-town newspapers have less of a tendency toward injustice in forming public opinion regarding a criminal than a large city newspaper. I believe it fair to state that the effect of the Code has been to call attention of editors to their responsibility in the matter of justice in a way that has brought favorable results. The con- demning of the practice of reporters' making themselves detectives in con- nection with criminal cases, is sweeping. There are reporters who will justify themselves in limited activities in aiding the police in crime detection. The Code discusses the matter from the publisher's viewpoint, which calls attention to an interesting comment made by Governor Allen of Kansas, who is proprietor of the Wichita Beacon. In a recent letter to Miss Armstrong, he states :

It always remains a problem to secure from one hundred individuals united in