MEDIA

...Medical students can always point to the future urologists...

...tragedy may repeat itself as tragedy...

...Nonetheless, the seriousness of the arms scandal is not preventing journalists from enjoying it...

...The very concept of "the source," in fact, assumes that individuals are mere repositories of information...

...How are you...

...Perhaps I err...

...A few really believe the public ought to be informed...

...No one is quite so important to a reporter as a source, and no relationship tells us more about what sort of a person the journalist really is...

...Other sources crave revenge...

...Walter Fee, who reports on courts for The Milwaukee Journal, says, "Jog with them, play rac-quetball with them, hike with them...

...But the public will not long remain amused by the good time the press is having...

...I feel like I know you...

...The interview was regarded as an invasion of privacy—an attempt to compromise another person's sense of purpose in the interest of the reporter's pursuit of his own...

...It is a troubling calculus, particularly in a democracy based on the notion that only by respecting individuals can the community's best interests be served...

...Reporters," they suggest, "have to be prepared to exploit all these motivations...

...As the journalists among us continue to take pleasure in their work, we would do well to keep in mind the moral costs at which their entertainment is purchased...

...But for the journalist, the ends of the source are a matter of small consequence...

...they need people to be their eyes and ears in the places they aren't...

...This is called cultivating sources," adds the text, emphasizing the point...

...This process is so essential to the functioning of modern journalism that those who worry about press ethics cannot address it...

...Benjamin Bradlee, The Washington Posfs executive editor, said he hadn't had so much fun since Watergate...

...They are an interesting lot, by and large, since they see so much of life, but not particularly likable...

...As the text suggests, the good reporter turns the source's motives back against him or her...

...the source exists to serve the ends of the journalist...

...By simply observing the process we readily grasp the fact that the relationship between the reporter and the source is exploitive...

...MEDIA Robert Karl Manoff Means and Ends The Iran/contra arms scandal should serve to remind us that when it comes to American politics, Marx got it wrong: History does repeat itself, but tragedy doesn't necessarily become farce the second time around...

...Young journalists can pick out the sons of bitches who will to make it to the top...

...By this standard, the journalist's obligation to exploit the motives of a source, as well as the need to objectify the source in order to get the story, clearly define contemporary journalism as an essentially immoral undertaking...

...of spouses and children...

...they need quotes...

...Journalism texts devote whole chapters to the subject, and one of the better ones explains the matter this way: "All reporters need tips...

...Bob Greene of Newsday says he notes the names Robert Karl Manoff is co-director of the Center for War, Peace, and the News Media at New York University...

...Although ignored by journalists, the issue lies at the heart of classical ethics theory...

...By virtue of what they require of their practitioners, certain trades attract certain character types...

...Then," he confides, "when you call the mayor and his wife answers, you say, 'Hi, Charlotte...

...They need sources...

...Cynical as they are, these prescriptions come as no surprise, even to those who have never entered a newsroom or cracked a journalism text...

...This does not alter the judgment about the moral character of the journalist's relationship to the source, but it grants extenuation because of the civic goals which journalists are presumed to share with the rest of society...

...The physician heals the patient who wants to be cured...

...Ultimately, the current scandal is bound to lead to a clash of cultures, just as Watergate did...

...Readers, viewers, and listeners value nothing so much as sobriety in the journalists they honor...

...No matter what the story being reported, we need to ask whether an enterprise so clearly compromised by treating others as means can truly be said to serve democracy as a Kingdom of Ends...

...The Kantian categorical imperative, for example, puts the matter this way: "So act as always to treat man, both in your own person and in that of another, as an end and never solely as a means...

...They seem familiar because they are implicit in the conduct of a Mike Wallace or a Sam Donaldson...

...Insofar as they concern themselves at all with ethical issues, journalists tend to debate such questions as the morality of using tape recorders...

...The best reporters are the "sharks" for whom getting the story is the only value and getting it first the only task...

...Moreover, journalists aren't very nice people...

...A hundred years ago, as Michael Schudson has pointed out in his social history of American journalism, reporters never dreamed of interviewing what we now call a source—even one who held public office...

...But are we then prepared to universalize the principle—as Kant would say we must to meet the test of morality—that the journalist is permitted to promote the ends of the public by compromising the ends of the individuals who are his sources...

...Other people exist in the journalist's world to serve his purposes...

...It shows sources you have a personal interest in them...

...Michael Kinsley, who edits The New Republic, informed his readers that he is having a ball...

...Perhaps what matters is the journalist's relationship with the public...

...Bill Plante, who covers the White House for CBS, observed on the air that "journalists are delighted to have a story...

...The attorney represents the client in order to promote the client's interests...

...Reporters are trained to use the people they talk to, and the best reporters are those who are most manipulative in these situations...

...Some sources are motivated by the desire for publicity, the text's authors add...

...Popular culture, on the other hand, values consensus, civility, and myth...

...This makes the journalist unique among professionals...

...The culture of journalism values conflict, revelation, and truth...

...Can you tell me where I can reach Charlie?'" Greene advises a call "even when you don't have a story in mind...