issued its conclusions. The report was an indictment of journalism as it was practiced in that era. As the commission saw it, the press was neglecting its social responsibility – reporting accurately on news important to society – and choosing instead to focus on sensational stories designed to attract readers rather than inform them. The report warned that if the press did not reform, it could face government intervention. 27
In the passage that was to have the most enduring influence on journalism, the commission declared that the press has the responsibility of providing “the current intelligence needed by a free society.” It then identified five things that American society needed from the press 28 :
1 A truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context that gives them meaning. The commission was saying that being accurate is essential but not enough. The commission then made a statement that journalists and the public recognize today as an important duty of the news media, and that is to distinguish between fact and opinion: “There is not fact without a context and no factual report which is uncolored by the opinions of the reporter.”
2 A forum for the exchange of comment and criticism. “The great agencies of mass communication,” the commission said, “should regard themselves as common carriers of public discussion.” They should publish “significant ideas contrary to their own,” using such devices as letters to the editor (or columnists offering a wide range of commentary, which would become a standard practice). The commission, which lamented that some ideas could be stifled because their authors had no access to newspaper printing presses, presumably would be gratified today by the ease with which ideas are spread on the internet.
3 The projection of a representative picture of the constituent groups in society. The commission denounced stereotypes and “hate words.” It observed that, “when the images [the media] portray fail to present the social group truly, they tend to subvert judgment.” The commission thus prodded the era’s news media, composed almost entirely of white males, to cover the entire community. The admonition was not taken seriously until the 1950s and 1960s, when the civil rights movements awakened the media to the need to broaden their news coverage.
4 The presentation and clarification of the goals and values of society. The media “must assume a responsibility like that of educators in stating and clarifying the ideals toward which the community should strive.” Sketching an agenda for the community has become a function that editorial pages and television panel discussions typically perform.
5 Full access to the day’s intelligence. The commission urged “the wide distribution of news and opinion” so that citizens could choose what they wanted to use. In the decades that followed, news outlets broadened the definition of “full access.” As surrogates for the citizens, they campaigned for legislation and court orders to compel governments to open meetings and records. They took the position that citizens should know how their business was being transacted.
The press didn’t like the Hutchins Commission’s report. Critics point to the fact that not a single journalist was on the commission. Columnist George Sokolsky said that having this commission critique the press was like having “a jury of saloonkeepers” assess the quality of education. 29 Luce himself was unimpressed, saying the report suffered from a “most appalling lack of even high school logic.” 30
Journalists also recoiled at the commission’s suggestion that citizen panels should be set up to monitor their performance. They didn’t like the idea of outsiders judging their work, and warned that voluntary commissions could lead to regulatory agencies with legal powers. It was not until 1973 that a National News Council was established to investigate complaints against the news media. It died a decade later, having failed to gain the support of either the public or the industry. 31
Ethical Awakening in the Profession
Press criticism did not begin or end with the Hutchins Commission, as George Seldes, I.F. Stone, and others were publishing press critiques in the decades before and after the commission made its study. Over the years, however, the Hutchins report was debated in journalism schools. The commission’s findings were elaborated on by scholars, notably in the 1956 book Four Theories of the Press by Frederick S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson, and Wilbur Schramm. 32
In time, the commission’s definition of journalism’s social responsibility made an impression on journalists, even though they rarely acknowledged the source. This was borne out at the end of the century when Kovach and Rosenstiel grilled journalists on what they stood for. Reading the purpose of journalism and the principles of journalism defined in The Elements of Journalism, one cannot miss the influence of the Hutchins Commission.
Somehow, journalists absorbed the ideas of the Hutchins intellectuals and made them their own. These ideas found their way into the codes of ethics adopted by organizations of journalists. New, stronger codes were adopted in 1966 by the Radio Television News Directors Association, in 1973 by the Society of Professional Journalists, in 1974 by the Associated Press Managing Editors, and in 1975 by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. The Hutchins influence can also be seen in the revised code adopted in 2014 by the Society of Professional Journalists, and discussed in detail in Chapter 8.
In an activist decade between the mid‐1970s and the mid‐1980s, many newspapers and broadcast stations formulated their own codes. The growth of newsroom codes during this period is documented by two surveys. An inquiry in 1974 by the Associated Press Managing Editors found that fewer than one in ten newspapers had ethics codes. Nine years later, journalism professor Ralph Izard of Ohio University found that three out of four newspapers and broadcast stations had written policies on newsroom standards and practices. 33
These newsroom codes aimed at improving credibility by eliminating conflicts of interest. Broadly defined, a conflict of interest is anything that could divert a journalist – or a news outlet – from performing the mission of providing reliable, unbiased information to the public. Journalists can be conflicted by accepting gifts from the people they cover, by their personal political or civic interests, or by part‐time jobs that create divided loyalties. News outlets are conflicted if they allow their commercial interests to interfere with gathering the news, such as killing a story under pressure from an advertiser. To their credit, many have resisted this pressure and done their journalistic duty even at a cost of millions of dollars in withheld advertising.
Initially, ethics reform centered on the practice of accepting gifts. As the 1970s began, cases of liquor were being carted into the newsroom just before Christmas. If a reporter needed to buy a car, the automobile manufacturer would be pleased to provide a discount. A press pass entitled the bearer and his (nearly everybody in the newsroom was male) family to so‐called freebies – free admittance to ball games, circuses, and amusement parks, and gifts of all kinds from business executives and politicians.
Typically, the journalists would protest that they wouldn’t slant news coverage to get a bottle of free liquor. This rationalization “underestimates the subtle ways in which gratitude, friendship, and the anticipation of future favors affect judgment,” the ethicist Michael Josephson wrote in his book Making Ethical Decisions: “Does the person providing you with the benefit believe that it will in no way affect your judgment? Would the person still provide the benefit if you were in no position to help?” 34
At the time, an argument for accepting freebies was that it was a way of supplementing salaries, which were notoriously low in most places. In fact, when the Madison (Wisconsin) Capital Times in 1974 promulgated an ethics code
