Suppressing The Story For The Good Of The Country

Great Debates
1

You’re a reporter for the Daily Bugle. Doing a bit of routine research in the university library, you come across pretty solid evidence that the Democratic candidate for president was guilty of _____________ back in college.

You call the campaign for a reaction, and receive a terse “No comment.”

But later that evening you get a call from a senior aide. “Listen,” he says. “Regardless of the truth of what you called about earlier, the reality is that this election is going to be close. Very close. Now, you know and I know that this country needs to get a Democrat into the White House; we can’t afford another four years of Republican control. You KNOW this. I’m asking you to hold off on your story until after the election.”

What values of “______________” might make it ethical to acede to the request? Any at all?

I’m not asking what you, personally, would do; this isn’t a poll. I’m asking what you believe would be the ethical course, and how it might change based on the nature and quality of “____________________”

2

I don’t know that, and I think that is the flaw in your scenario.

If the press begins to explicitly serve the interests of one political party, then we don’t have a free press in the sense of what that has come to mean.

Also, the idea that the candidate did something in college might, in and of itself, make it a non-event. Maybe it should be something a little more current to make it more controversial.

3

Might is the key word, if they were say, Jack the Ripper v2.7b then it may be good to know about it.

Anyway if it were something really mundane, I may agree (assuming/pretending that this fictional reporter I’m assuming the role of agrees wholeheartedly we NEED a Democratic candidate no matter his integrety of course) with them if it’s something minor way back when “feh, a one time pot user… whatever.” And certain tiny tidbits may just be seen as stirring up shit, for “daring” to make them news. (I’ve even seen Pit threads revolving around why they would bother to point out non-issue 7-a section IX) And in that case I may want to withold it just for my own sake, or the business’ sake of getting accused over something minor.

I’d say it’d need to be in the “high moderate” range for me to publish it. For example, if I found out they used cocaine for 6 years I’d put that out, if they murdered 7 people and never even got suspected of the crime I’d report it, I’d say the “lowest” I’d probably report is some middle-tier shoplifting (i.e. a single big item or a good number of, say, cheap t-shirts). Lower than that and I’d say “screw it.”

4

If _____ is plausibly relevant to the election, no amount of perceived necessity for partisan victory should merit its suppression. I don’t think the suppression can gain legitimacy because it would win the election. It is anti-democratic and paternalistic position to take. In this country we believe in the free flow of information, for better or worse.

On the other hand, I do think that I would have some duty of discretion in reporting a candidate’s private life–both because privacy is important and because democracy is hurt when campaigns don’t discuss policy. I think there’s a whole class of things which could affect the vote, but not because they are plausibly relevant. I think these could be legitimately suppressed even without the belief that a certain candidate’s victory is necessary. Off the top of my head I would include sexual experimentation, hallucinogenic drugs, and non-serious medical history (abortion).

So I take something of a middle position. I do not accept the notion that I, controller of information, should be the judge of which candidate should win. But I do accept the notion that I, controller of information, should judge what information is relevant. I admit that my position is still uncomfortably paternalistic, because I would be making the judgment that these are not plausibly relevant character issues, while some people undoubtedly believe they are. But I think I don’t think it would be unethical to lay on the story if I have a good faith belief that the relevancy of the information is outweighed by the candidate’s privacy.

ETA: Bricker, your PM box is full.

5

The OP’s proposed scenario is so convoluted that the simple question of ethics seemed to have been deliberately obscured. Am I a reporter or a campaign worker?

The ethics of reporting are certainly slippery. “Is the information relevant?” is a question with many possible answers, varying by the interests of the audience, but I don’t see how we are to separate “what we would personally do” from “what we believe would be the ethical course.”

Are you asking what kind of college behavior would bother us in a candidate, or how desperate we are to get a Democrat into the White House?

6

My take - the Press aren’t really public servants in the same sense as police or firemen. I’d use my own sense of what’s good for me, and also what’s ethical for the ordinary citizen to hold back.
So, IMO, any major felonies like armed robbery, murder, rape, paedophilia, that sort of thing - of course I won’t hold back. It’s not good for the country or me to have a criminal in charge, no matter what party. Lesser crimes (teenage joyriding, a little pot, that sort of thing) get a pass. Plus, probably worth more to the tabloids when he’s Pres :slight_smile:

Private stuff (he loves the cock, his Victoria’s Secret thong collection is bigger than his wife’s, he has a tattoo of Teddy Roosevelt on his ass) would be untouched, unless it crossed over into outright hypocrisy - he actively legislates against the cock-loving, he pretends to be an Evangelical when he’s secretly a Hare Krishna.

Where it becomes sticky is the more politically relevant stuff. Was he the anonymous author of some racist pamphlets? The leader of a environmental activist cell that caused property damage? A Stormfronter? That’d be situational, although all three those examples would be published by me.

Plus, I’d reason that if it’s damaging enough, the candidate would have to drop out and another Dem would step in. Sure, said Dem. would be coming from behind in the race, but the party isn’t one candidate, you know? At least, I’d hope not.

I am, of course not American, so I may have made some mistakes there (e.g., IIRC illegal drug use can be a felony, but ethically, I wouldn’t treat it as one)

7

You’re not an American, but I’d be happy to have more people like you.

8

I wouldn’t report something like having sex with a woman who had an abortion while he was in college or smoking pot or something like that, but I would report something unethical like cheating to pass an exam or helping a campaign commit election fraud. I think members of the press should hold themselves to a higher standard than the rest of us when it comes to politics, because careless reporting has such a dramatic effect on elections. We’ve seen more candidates sunk by the press-torpedo than by their political opponents’ campaigning, and that bothers me.

9

One time political writer and current publisher of newspapers here.

This is where I would laugh at him. A reporter for whom this sort of argument would work is already in the can and wouldn’t run the story. A straightforward ethical reporter doesn’t give a damn about which party runs the country. They’ll likely have personal opinions but that shouldn’t impact their coverage.

While not being involved in that sort of decision at the federal level I have, recently, on the local level and I’ve run the stories. A political candidate’s future, immediate or long-term, isn’t something I give a damn about.

For me to spike a story based on some sort of ‘greater good’ angle it had better have many lives at stake and the reasoning presented had better be good. Don’t get me wrong, here. We have stories every week that we could run but don’t. But the decision comes from us and usually revolves around ‘is this really a story or is it just gossipy tripe that will only hurt the person involved and not help the community.’

10

My Spidey-sense tells me that it isn’t the job of reporters to make decisions that would affect the outcome of partisan elections. If the matter is newsworthy then it should be reported regardless of the outcome.

11

I think other posters have pretty much nailed it. Jonathan Chance said what I was basically thinking, reporting of the news is reporting of the news. If you discovered that your candidate was burning bras and marching for womyn’s lib denouncing the federal government for being crueland unjust, many would think that’s news and therefore should be reported.

12

Which would be a refreshing change from all the Republicans lately who’ve been coming from behind.

13

What’s the difference between this and what Bricker asks? Aside from rejecting the overt request for suppression, isn’t what you say “suppressing the story for the good of the country”?

14

OK, the emerging consensus seems to be: if it’s news, it’s news. There’s some wiggle room – if the matter is more private than public, i.e., thong collection, then there’s something to be said for not running with the story.

Moreover, no one has really suggested it’s ethical for the reporter to make the decision based on the “We need a Democrat in there” appeal. The sense I get from the responses above is, “Either the story is legitimate or it’s not.”

Two questions, then, to flesh that out. I assume the equation doesn’t change if it’s the Republican candidate in the picture?

Second, and this is the real meat of the puzzle: why? By that I mean, in a devil’s advocatey way, we have a Republican administration that has lied to get us into war, and those lies have killed innocent soldiers and civilians, with more dying every week. The Democrat will end that war and stop the killing; the Republican won’t seem to commit to that. It seems to be a simple matter of saving lives. Why wouldn’t the ethical reporter make the ethical choice to save lives?

15

I think that a different ethical issue than the one Bricker’s raised actually comes to the fore in the scenario - my reaction is to run the story, even if I was on the fence before, because a political party is trying to interfere with the free press. And I would say that to the party operative - “Your call to muzzle me is the deciding factor to run that story. And every time you try to muzzle me in the future, the same thing will happen.”

16

If the “_____________” in “guilty of _____________ back in college” was more tabloid crap with no real relevance to the candidate’s trustworthiness (e.g. the sort of strictly personal behavior a few posts have described*), I wouldn’t publish regardless of partisan considerations.

*However, it would become fair game if accompanied by hypocritical political attacks on other people’s right to engage in the same behavior – belief that there should be one rule for privileged people such as himself and another for the common peasants is clearly relevant in and of itself. In fact, I’d be particularly determined to air such information, as it would demonstrate the candidate to be far more anti-American than someone who had spent the past twenty years bellowing “God Damn America!” in a voice that makes Reverend Wright sound as quiet as Marcel Marceau.

17

My inclination would be to report it no matter what, unless it was something truly personal and not illegal. If it’s something really minor and not important, the public can figure that out. Voters really haven’t cared about candidates smoking pot in college or getting DUI’s or the like.

If it was rape or mur-dur or armed robbery or something, it would definitely have to be reported. I guess I’m saying, no, I wouldn’t cover for a political candidate even if the opponent was potentially worse for the country.

18

Speaking as someone who went to journalism school and worked as a journalist, if someone is going to ask me to kill a story “for the good of _____” then someone had better give me a whole lot more evidence than “we really need a Democrat in the White House.”

When the stakes get to “someone’s life is in immediate danger and if you run this right now, they could die,” then I’ll start worrying about ethical implications.

19

The reporter’s ethical job is to inform the public, not to make decisions for it. The ethical obligation to save the country belongs to the public, not to the press. The public can never be harmed by getting more information, it can and has been harmed by not being given enough.

20

No matter how you spin it, if you suppress a news story to advance your own political agenda, you’re acting unethically. It’s one of the reasons I’m so upset with Bush and his administration, actually. It’s becoming more and more apparent that the executive has improperly withheld information from congress and suppressed the press in order to advance their political agendas on a scale I haven’t seen yet in my lifetime.