European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - June 9, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns the stars and stripes tuesday june 9,1987 . Rosenthal journalists should take a look at themselves this is an attempt to examine some questions about the press. For Many years i was sure i had firm answers to them. But the questions Are getting sharper and the answers arc getting murkier which can be disconcerting. The questions put to me frequently these Days by others and by myself can be summed up this Way if the press is increasingly insistent on knowing More and More about the private lives of people in Public life does it not have the ethical obligation to Tell More and More about itself to Start easy should journalists make their finance Public not just salaries but private investments inheritances and the specific source and amount of extra Money from each lecture television appearance and Book. We want to know the last Dollar s Worth about officials. Many in the press influence Public affairs More than most officials. And How about financial information not Only fro top editors and executives but also from editorial writ ers columnists beat reporters and desk editors who Are often More important than their chiefs in Day to Day presentation of the news and is the Reader or viewer entitled to know the political votes or inclinations of the correspondent who cover Congress or the White House bid they Ever give Money to nicaraguans pro or Contra now lets get to it. Writers and editors have you Ever committed adultery Are you doing it now homosexual experiences names please. And surely you will not mind publisher if we read ers pitch in a few dollars each to put a secret cordon around your Pusc at night since your reporters extend that attention to others. These Are not new questions. We in the press always have been confident of the answer o questions about our own politics sex lives and Money. We Are not officials Pur Mission in life is to divorce our stories and news judgments from Bias and the Public watchdog Only thing that counts is what we put in the papers or broadcast. So How we vote or what we belong to or what we think off the Job docs not matter. About our personal lives Are you crazy who we arc and what we do arc not pertinent just judge us on what we write and How we play the news. Forty years of experience have firmed rather than shaken my Trust in the journalistic integrity of most reporters. On Good papers there Are layers of editors to catch prejudice. And if we slip there it is in print or on the air to show us up. I know there Are reporters and editors who slant the news i have been the subject of articles for which the writer should hang. The scoundrels will certainly be brought to Justice in the next world if it cannot be arranged in this. But there Are relatively few of them so Trust us seems reasonable to say. The problem is although neither questions nor an Swers have changed much journalism has mostly forthe better mostly. It has become tougher minded and deeper digging which usually is Good. At the same Lime it has become rather meaner and less inclined to Grant any areas of Trust or privacy which is not All that Good. So it seems less Clear to say that every Public official must report the source of every bit of income while news people decline to say what political group or Industry is paying them to lecture or who May be pick ing up a Bill for a trip now and then. And once there were areas of private life newsmen considered off limits. This was under a theory of journalism known As but now the love affairs drinking habits and sexual preferences As we say not just of presidential Candi dates but of All significant officials Are news. In t it less logical for journalists to say their private lives Are their own business Aren t they often even More influential than Many officials whose private conduct is considered relevant to the Public no colleagues it is not a first amendment Issue. We would All be opposed to any regulation or Industry wide code of conduct on such things. It is something much More difficult to put Down than at tacks on the first amendment that squeaky Little voice inside that always asks you questions and now snot really quieted when the Trust us answer is played Back. Journalists can keep ducking the Issue but not for Long. One Day soon editors reporters and publishers will have to decide paper by paper if the familiar answers arc Good enough. Those who think not will face the Choice of doing without some stories about personal matters or agreeing to make their own lives fully Public. It is not a matter of Law but of ethics and that squeaky voice. C new Yolk Timos James Reston a different View of past and present problems Cambridge England the noisy world of politics seems very far away from this tranquil University town but in its Spires and Dusty bookshops one finds a different Way of looking at our present problems. For Many years sir Herbert butter held was Cambridge s most distinguished philosopher of history. He died in 1979, but his writings still seem Rele vant and a lot More hopeful than this morning s headlines. First he warned against the illusion of total Security for any nation. It was impossible he noted for Germany to acquire the degree of Security it thought it ought to have without itself becoming a menace to its neighbors. This universe was always unsafe he wrote in International conflict in the twentieth Century and those who de Mand a watertight Security Are always a danger in any period of history. I wonder if it could not be formulated As a Law that no state can Ever achieve the Security i desires without so tipping the balance that it becomes a menace to its neigh Bors second he thought it was a danger to push an adversary or an enemy too far. Because we thought that there never could be an aggressor so wicked As Ger Many under the Kaiser he noted we determined to fight world War i to the Point of total surrender and thereby conjured into existence two menaces still More formidable the communists on the one hand and the nazis on the other. Butterfield was no priggish Mpr Alizer. He believed in a balance of military Power that would discourage aggressors but he did t believe in pushing things too far. We must not imagine he observed that All is Well if our armaments make the enemy afraid for it is possible at least in the 20th Century that it is fear More than anything else which is the cause of Butterfield worried about political leaders who never knew the accidents and lessons of history or Seldom veered from their politics and propaganda to reflect on them. However hard we have tried in the 20th Century to make allowances for the unpredictable consequences of War he wrote we have always discovered that the most terrible of these has been omitted from our calculations or Only imperfectly seen. One example of the fact is the loss of Liberty in various countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans the very re Gions whose Freedom was the primary Issue for which we were supposed to have undertaken two world Butterfield did not fear indeed he welcomed the Competition Between Eastern communism and Western democracy in the underdeveloped world. He reminds us in America that we gained our own Independence through revolution Andwar. A new kind of warfare he observed is tormenting the submerged peo Ples of the world most of them living on the Borders of starvation. We have to ask ourselves whether there is anything that Russia has to offer to the less developed or uncommitted regions of the world that we ourselves arc not prepared to offer them. I think it is open to us to secure Victory for our ideals but i am not Clear that we shall be Able to hold on to our vested interests whatever policy we yet when Butterfield was Drifting into the shadows after his Long journey he was optimistic. Yes there was a religious War Between the East and the West he conceded but the wars of religion in 16th-Century France had gone on for years and were finally composed if not resolved by the spirit of toleration. I think he said that in this mod Ern world. All systems Are going to move in the direction of Liberty if Only somebody will open a window so that the world can breathe a More relaxed air and we can end the Dominion of fear. There is agg session there is tyranny there is revolutionary ferment but if we wish to civilize International affairs we must do More than arrogantly hold our own against the barbarians. We wait perhaps for some Abraham Lincoln who will relieve the pressure and begin the task of creating i came out of the Bookstore int Sunshine of All things and walked Over to hear the King s College choir. Come Back later a sour old Warden said. But i Felt a Little better about the world any Way. C new Yolk Timos
