As it derives its name from the French jour meaning “day”, journalism is a daily and faithful record of the day’s events. Immediacy is then something very important to journalists, and it has been said that journalists always live on a deadline. To journalists then, if the story doesn’t get out immediately, it becomes stale and loses not only its flavor, but its relevance and importance to society as well. They not only have to get the story, but they have to get it fast.

Together with immediacy, journalists must ensure the accuracy and fairness of the facts. After all, journalism is the relentless pursuit for truth, and its first obligation is to the truth. But truth is a fundamental value not just to journalism, but to society as well.

Chapter Four of Louis Day’s Ethics in Media Communications enumerates several reasons for the importance of truth. Truth provides a certain degree of integrity in human communications: without a premium on truth, the autonomy of the individual is undermined. Relying on truthful information allows us to make our own decisions and formulate our own opinions about certain matters. People, then, expect journalists to be truthful in their reportage.[1]

Also, a commitment to truth “demonstrates a respect for persons as ends rather than as tools to be manipulated.”[2] This goes hand in hand with the journalists’ responsibility to minimize harm, both to the public and to themselves, as the aim to minimize harm is a manifestation of this respect for humanity as ends rather than means.

Finally, “belief in the truthfulness of communications… builds trust between individuals and society’s institutions.”[3] If trust between individuals did not exist, communicating with one another would be senseless, as we would always doubt the truth of one’s words. This is especially important for journalism, as a premium is placed on the credibility of journalists, their trustworthiness, and their duty to report the truth to the public.

However, even if the journalists’ first duty is to the truth, journalists sometimes resort to deceptive means in order to obtain their stories. These deceptive means include misrepresenting themselves, going undercover, misleading their public, or outright lying.[4] Journalists justify that they employ such deceptive practices in the name of public interest: it is their duty to get the story out so that the public may know about it. The question is, is it ethical to employ deceptive means in order to fulfill one’s journalistic duty?

The Moral Case

            To illustrate this ethical dilemma, an interview with a journalist was conducted. Hannah Alcoseba has been working as a reporter for GMA-7 since November 2003. Before that, she was a reporter for Business World for eleven months.

            On March 20, 2004, Erap was allowed by the Sandiganbayan to visit his 99-year-old mother Donya Mary in the hospital. She had expressed her desire to see Erap –her favorite son—on her birthday, and likewise, Erap had been requesting the Sandiganbayan for permission to regularly visit and check up on her since she was frequently getting sick. In light of this, the Sandiganbayan granted Erap a special 36-hour reprieve, but restricted him from giving press interviews and from meeting with his political supporters.[5]

            Knowing that Erap had been temporarily released, Hannah decided to call him up and ask if she could be present at that visit. Erap agreed, on the condition that Hannah would not bring a camera with her. However, Hannah decided to bring a mini-DV camera with her, hidden inside her bag. She and Erap started making small talk when she got there, and unknown to him, she had begun taking footage of him. When he caught her, he got annoyed. Eventually, he had allowed her to take the footage but not without a dirty look. He only got in a better mood when they entered the room of Donya Mary, and everything was forgotten.[6]

            When she got back to the office, she gave the tape to her bosses without telling them how she had obtained the footage. As a result, they loved her for it and aired the story.

Journalist’s Justification

            Due to the nature of her job as a broadcast journalist, Hannah felt that it was necessary to get the footage. “It was a big story,” she said, “and it would have been useless without the video.”[7] This, in a sense, was a fulfillment of her duty as a journalist: she got the story.

            Getting the story would also mean gaining an edge over the network’s competitors. This edge is something that journalists value: they must be the first ones to get the story.

            She also thought that since she had already been given access to the story, she might as well take the risk and get the entire story: why stop with an interview when she could get exclusive footage.[8]

            Although Erap’s reasons for giving Hannah the access that she needed are unknown, the airing of the story indeed has legal implications. He was only given permission to visit his mother on the condition that the media would not be present. The presence of the media would have been considered contempt of court.[9]

            However, Hannah contends that the mere fact that Erap had been given this special privilege of visiting his mother and leaving his quarters when he was not supposed to merited enough attention. It was a story that aimed to show how Erap was getting special treatment when he was not supposed to. It was a story the public needed to know.[10]

Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics

            Aristotle’s virtue ethics is centered on the idea that “moral virtue… is formed by habit… none of the moral virtues is implanted in us by nature.”[11] As it is habituated, a virtue then becomes a characteristic of the person. In this moral case, one must consider, was this the first time that Hannah had lied to a source in order to get access or information needed for a story?

            When asked, Hannah replies, “[This was] not the first time. I only lie if I really need the information.” She says that before making the decision to lie, she weighs things first, such as the importance of the story and the extent to which she has gone to get the story. Her job as a journalist seems to have conditioned her into setting parameters for herself when to lie and when not to. She moves on to say, “I lie if it means it’s the final step to getting it. I do not lie often though, just if it’s a big story.”[12] As a relatively new reporter though, it is doubtful that lying to get a story has truly become habitual. But despite the parameters she has set, it is still possible for lying to become a characteristic, especially if being a journalist permits her to continually lie in instances she deems fit.

Could she have employed Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean? This would require her to find the mean relative to her and her situation, and this would hopefully result in her doing the virtuous act. However, the situation seemed to be one without a mean: Erap had been restricted from conducting press conferences, so it was an all or nothing situation for Hannah. It was either she went in and, because of the desire to remain true to her word that she would not bring a camera, leave the hospital without the story; or she would betray his confidence by bringing a camera and taking the story. She could not have negotiated with him regarding the camera because she would have been denied access flat out. Therefore, she seemed to be placed in an all-or-nothing situation where there was no mean to abide by. She would then have to adhere to another philosophy to justify her actions: the fulfillment of her journalistic duty.

Kant’s Categorical Imperative

To simplify Kant’s ethics, one should be faithful to one’s duty because duty is what reason tells the good will to do. To be faithful to one’s duty then presupposes a good will. Without a good will, one cannot be faithful to one’s duty.

Given that, Kant believes that there is a moral duty people must obey, something he calls the categorical imperative: “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”[13] In other words, do only that which you would will everyone to do to everyone else.

To apply to Hannah’s case, she says that lying to get the story is justified because she is doing that simply to fulfill her journalistic duty. However, under the test of universality, lying is not something permissible in other professions and even in society as a whole. For Kant, “truth [is] a universal value that should be brought to bear in all circumstances, regardless of the consequences.”[14] As earlier mentioned, there would be no point to communicating with one another if lying were permissible in society, as we would always be suspicious of what we tell each other.

In a formulation of the categorical imperative, Kant says, “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as means, but at the same time as an end. Again, Hannah’s decision to lie to tell the story dos not fulfill the creation of humanity: “In the end, it’s mutually beneficial anyway. He’s using me and I’m using him.”[15] Erap then, had become a means that Hannah had used to get her story.

Because the act of lying cannot be universalized and it does not treat the human being as an end in itself, it cannot be justified by Kant’s categorical imperative.

How should journalists conduct themselves in these situations?

            It is difficult to recommend an alternative course of action. Lying to get a story is often justified by not only the importance of the story, but also by its timeliness. Journalists are often pressured by deadlines and competition between networks to get the story and to be the first one at it. It is because of such pressures that unethical practices come into play.

Hannah’s ethical grounding as a young reporter is arguably unstable. She is largely influenced by John Mills’ theory of utilitarianism: “My duty is to inform the public… [Journalism should uphold] truth and integrity for the good of more people, not just a few… If [the] end goal [of lying] will be to make more good for more people, then it is justified.”[16]

This is not to say that Mills’ theory is inappropriate to use for journalistic ethics. Neither does this mean that journalistic ethics should be strictly Kantian or Aristotelian in nature. It just shows that adhering strictly to the teachings of only one philosopher is very dangerous because it does not take into consideration the limitations of such a philosophy. In not considering the limitations of a philosophy, it is easy then to act unethically under the guise of being ethical.

I believe that journalism ethics requires a healthy balance of various philosophical foundations. In making an ethical decision, I believe that a journalist will best benefit if he think of what various philosophers would do in the same situation.

However, this can only happen if publications and networks had a code of ethics that their reporters faithfully adhere to whenever they are confronted with ethical dilemmas. I believe that Hannah’s superiors had equal responsibility over the situation. Despite the legal implications of her action, her bosses did not discuss how to go about getting the story in the most ethical way possible. In fact, she says, “I was encouraged to get [the story] in however way I wanted.”[17] This was the fault of Hannah’s superiors: they should have deliberated on the assignment before she was sent to do it, encouraged her not to use unethical means, and discussed whether to air footage that had been obtained because she had lied to Erap.

As a result, Erap’s lawyers had become stricter, and Hannah was no longer able to interview Erap again: “Sandiganbayan sheriff Ed Urieta got really strict after that. He was the one who kept volunteering himself for an interview instead of Erap.” Hence, although GMA-7 got the exclusive story, this was but a short-term effect. In the long run, access to Erap had become much more difficult. Lying to Erap seems to have served its short-term purpose, but has been more damaging in the long run.

Conclusion

Lying to get a story is something that neither Aristotle nor Kant condone. A very high premium on truth is placed because truth is the very thing that keeps a society united. Lying then is neither virtuous nor admirable, no matter what the ends are. The end does not justify the means.

Journalists are always in pursuit of truth, so much that they begin to think that the end does justify the means. Because of the pressures of the job, it is unrealistic to dictate the kind of ethics journalists have to subscribe to. The nature of the job has too many gray areas to define clearly a mode of action in specific situations.

What is important for journalists, and for those in other professions as well, is to consider and deliberate what they ought and must do. The consequences, effects, and implications of their actions should always be considered.

Ethics is not something that journalism can do away with. On the contrary, ethics can help build journalism’s credibility and trustworthiness in society. It can help journalism achieve its very purpose of both serving the public and finding the truth.

            If only more journalists realized that.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Book II. In Que, Nemesio S. Moral Thinking: A Collection of Readings for

Ph104-Foundations of Moral Values. Ateneo de Manila University: Office of Research and Publication.

Black, Jay, Bob Steele, and Ralph Barney. “Deception.” In Doing Ethics in Journalism: A Handbook with Case Studies. USA: Allyn and Bacon, 1999.

Day, Louis. “Truth and Honesty in Media Communications.” In Ethics in Media Communications. USA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003.

Kant, Immanuel. “Categorical Imperative.” In Que, Nemesio S. Moral Thinking: A Collection of Readings for Ph104-Foundations of Moral Values. Ateneo de Manila University: Office of Research and Publication.

Sun Star Network Online. “Erap out, visits mom in hospital.” Available from

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/net/2004/03/20/erap.out.visits.mom.in.hospital.html. Internet. Accessed October 4, 2004.