Page:The Social Value of a Code of Ethics for Journalists.pdf/8

 same sentence: It consists in a declaration of principles upon which virtually all experienced and conscientious newspaper men say they agree. It is chary of either prescribing or condemning concrete practices. Under this code practices will differ, for editors will apply these principles differently.

This can be illustrated from Section III, of the Code, "Justice, Mercy, Kindliness" (page 284). Here Rules 11, 12, 14 and 15 will in actual office practice come into conflict almost daily with Rule 13. Rule 13 means that the friend must be treated with the same cruelty with which the friendless stranger is treated; that the eminent citizen and wealthy advertiser has no more right to privacy for his misdeeds than the resourceless stranger within the gates; that the tortured applicant who comes in person to beg the editor's mercy may not have it unless the paper policy is equally merciful to all. Or, to put it conversely, the stranger is entitled to the same kindliness and mercy as the friend, the poor as the influential.

Such a code as this, setting forth principles rather than practices, can scarcely be "enforced" in American journalism as at present organized. However, it is expected by the State Editorial Association to have some "teeth" and possibly to effect some changes in the profession. In the first place, the public is taken into the confidence of the papers. The School of Journalism, by request, has printed conspicuous wall cards in two colors, two feet by three, in which form the code will be displayed in the various newspaper offices where the public and any complaining members of the public may see it. The State Editorial Association, also, has had stereotype plates made which are being sent to each paper in the state to make practicable the publication of the code in full by all the papers. Many of the papers

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in the larger cities printed the code without waiting for this assistance.

Application of Its Principles

The first section of the code, "Sincerity; Truth" (page 284), disowns all sophistries, and, in effect, pledges the paper that prints the code or displays it in the office to an observance of its principles. It "interprets accuracy not merely as the absence of actual misstatement, but as the presence of whatever is necessary to prevent the reader from making a false deduction." It also accepts the duty of openly acknowledging error. The reluctance of newspapers to retract erroneous statements and opinions in any wholehearted way has an interesting history reaching back to some not ignoble English precedents of a hundred years ago, but under American laws and conditions today, remedy through the court is not adequate, and refusal to make a willing and wholehearted retraction is often only stubborn meanness. This the Oregon editors disown.

Care; Competency; Thoroughness

Section II, "Care; Competency; Thoroughness" (page 284), has more in it than appears at first sight. It is, in a way, a mandate from the press to the Oregon School of Journalism to regard journalism "as a learned profession." This is not the way his vocation is regarded by many a reporter today, as anyone familiar with the American press well knows. Little midnight oil is burned in the study of the arts and sciences, or the fundamentals of sociology, economics, politics or religion by many reporters. Unlike the young ambitious lawyer or doctor, the reporter does not usually believe that success in his profession depends upon any intellectual effort aside from performing the tasks of the day; with the result that in many