Content-Type: text/html Privacy and the pack: Ethical considerations faced by local papers covering the JFK Jr. plane crash Burnett Competition Privacy and the pack: Ethical considerations faced by local papers covering the JFK Jr. plane crash Mark W. Mulcahy Graduate Student University of Missouri - Columbia 1301 Business 63 South Apt. 606 Columbia MO 65201 [log in to unmask] 573-442-7564 Local journalists covering the deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr., Carolyn Kennedy and Lauren Bessette dealt with at least three ethical dilemmas. The first issue was that of invading the private lives of a very public family through the use of anonymous sources and photographs taken with telephoto lenses. Reporters also had to consider the privacy issue as well as other ethical considerations, such as accuracy, in the use of anonymous sources. The third dilemma deals with how increased competition would affect the ethical decision-making of the local journalists covering a story being reported all over the globe. All three of these issues became intertwined during coverage. As the competition grew, the dependence on anonymous sources and the need to capture private moments on film both intensified. The connection between ethics and increased competition is well illustrated in an anecdote from the Cape Cod Times news editor.[1]1 The news editor had wrapped up the second long day of coverage of the John F. Kennedy Jr. plane crash on the evening of Sunday, July 18, 1999, and stopped at a local pub packed with reporters. The editor's cell phone rang and Cape Cod Times acting night editor Jeff Burt told the editor there was a new development on a story about the plane's registration washing up on JFK Jr.'s own beach on Martha's Vineyard. A source now insisted on being anonymous. Burt was in the middle of asking what to do when the battery on the news editor's cell phone died. Unaware of his surroundings and the Cape Cod Times insignia on his shirt, the editor was overheard saying "a new development?" and "Oh, damn" when the connection was lost. He ran out of the bar to the nearest pay phone and called editor Cliff Schechtman, who agreed to hold the story to get confirmation from at least one more source. Returning to the pub, the news editor found only an NBC cameraman in the bar. The cameraman asked the Cape Cod Times news editor about "the new development." He told the editor that the other reporters left to either check with the Coast Guard or go to the Kennedy Compound to check on "the new development." The cameraman smiled and told the editor: "You sure know how to clear out a bar." The tragedy and the local papers John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn were flying from New York to Martha's Vineyard on July 16 to drop off her sister Lauren Bessette before they were to join the rest of the Kennedy clan for his cousin Rory's wedding the next day. When it was discovered that Kennedy's plane failed to arrive at Martha's Vineyard airport that evening, a massive week-long search and recovery mission would begin off the shores of Cape Cod. That was also the start of an equally massive media onslaught of more than 1,000 journalists from throughout the world descending on Cape Cod. That onslaught provided additional fuel for a competitive fire that already exists between the three major dailies sold on Cape Cod, the Cape Cod Times, the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald. As the only daily newspaper with offices on Cape Cod, the air of increased competition enveloped the Cape Cod Times newsroom upon the announcement of the JFK Jr. tragedy. "This is our backyard. We must be the paper of record on this," Cape Cod Times editor Cliff Schechtman told his staff on that first weekend. Over at the Boston Globe, while the editor there made no such announcement, he later said the sense of competition always plays a role in coverage. "Every story is competitive. First and foremost, we want to do a good job on our own terms, and various decisions we made reflected that," Globe editor Matthew Storin said. "There were no unusual conversations about any of this. We were too busy. And this is what we do for a living. No need to have special talks about it." That was also pretty much the sentiment across town at the Boston Herald where Jim MacLaughlin, the paper's deputy managing editor/news, said he didn't recall any specific discussions about the ethics of the situation or heightened competition. He says: It should be noted that we are in a highly competitive situation every single day -- Boston is one of very few cities that still has at least two independent daily newspapers --so Herald reporters know that the Globe is out there and they're routinely expected to get the story, get it right, and, hopefully, get it first. While the Globe is our main concern, we'd be fools to ignore the Cape Cod Times -- it's their backyard, after all -- and the broadcast media.(McLaughlin, 2000) The coverage of the JFK Jr. plane crash was indicative of the problems encountered in covering celebrities but it in no way did it break new ground. The coverage of O.J. Simpson, Princess Diana, Tonya Harding, Richard Jewell, Arthur Ashe and even Marv Albert all touched on some of the issues encountered during that week on Cape Cod. In all of these cases, the media had to deal with what constitutes an invasion of privacy, when do you allow sources to remain anonymous and how do you deal with "the pack" in competitive newsgathering situations. Invasion of Privacy Walter V. Robinson, a managing editor at the Boston Globe, notes that "there is no more public family in the country than the Kennedy family." Yet, even the Kennedys demand some level of privacy. Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the president and sister to John F. Kennedy Jr., co-authored "The Right to Privacy" in 1995 with Ellen Alderman. Although the book dealt with legal cases of an issue that was obviously very close to her, most of the case studies in the book dealt with private individuals. (Kennedy and Alderman, 1995) Bok's decription of privacy as "a large area of each person's life is clearly his to keep as secret as he wishes _ personal concerns and liberty not to be tampered with" (Bok, 1999, pp.150-151) is a suitable framework for this discussion. Using philosopher Louis D. Hodges concept of expanding circles of intimacy, Patterson and Wilkins consider privacy as "control over who has access to your various circles of intimacy." (Patterson and Wilkins, 1994, p.115) Furthermore, they define an invasion of privacy as "when your control over your own circles of intimacy is wrestled from you by people or institutions." (Patterson and Wilkins, 1994, p.115) The question arises as to how much privacy is owed to public officials and celebrities who thrust themselves into the limelight as the Kennedys have done. Sieb and Fitzpatrick use the 1992 case of USA Today essentially forcing Arthur Ashe to disclose that he had AIDS before he was prepared to make such an announcement to illustrate the issue of invading the privacy of public figures. People who thrust themselves into public view - such as political candidates, entertainers and professional athletes - are generally assumed to have waived some of their privacy rights. After all, the reasoning goes, their livelihood depends in large part on their visibility. They know that, and because they benefit from news coverage they should not be expected to control that coverage. (Seib and Fitzpatrick, 1997, p. 81) Yet the argument can be made as to whether the majority of the Kennedys DO benefit from news coverage. It is certainly beneficial to Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Patrick Kennedy as politicians and Maria Shriver and her husband Arnold Schwarzenegger as television and film personalities. But then there are other members of the family, such as Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, who shies away from the cameras. Kennedy Schlossberg uses her celebrity status sparingly, only for such events as the Profiles in Courage awards or the dedication of the dedication of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1978. Kennedy Schlossberg, carries on the tradition of her mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who Carol Reuss describes as a private person despite her celebrity. She (Kennedy Onassis) determined, though, that she and her children deserved privacy and she was persistent in protecting it. She developed what one reporter called "a passion for privacy" and defended it for years, with every means at her disposal, including lawsuits. Major media players, many of whom had covered the White House, began to respect her wishes. Reporters often knew about her activities but didn't report them. They continued that reserve in their coverage of her final illness and death, even though millions of people probably wanted to know as many details as possible. Her legacy is that privacy is possible in a very public media world. (Reuss, 1996, p. 167) Kennedy Schlossberg carried on that legacy during the week of the search for, and later funerals for, her brother and the Bessette sisters. She kept her family away from the Kennedy Compound and the Martha's Vineyard house she and JFK Jr. co-inherited from their mother, avoiding the media throngs gathered at both locations. Yet, when she emerged from seclusion for a bike ride with her husband and to play basketball with her son Jack on Tuesday, July 20, photographers from the New York Post and the Associated Press captured the moments. The front page of the next day's Globe and Page 5 of the Herald each had the cycling photo, while Page A5 of the Cape Cod Times had the Associated Press photo of her playing basketball with her son. "It is our experience that the Kennedys - with rare exception - accept that they are public figures and expect no privacy," Storin said. "Though there are limits even with that situation, we did not by and large hold back. I thought we had great photos. We would draw the line at close photos of children in that situation." If one takes the Breckenridge definition of privacy as a "right to withdraw or participate as he sees fit," one might conclude that the cycling photos were not an invasion of privacy. As Breckenridge further stipulates "It is also that individual's right to control dissemination of information about himself, it is his own personal possession." (Breckinridge, 1980, p. 1) In this sense, since Arthur Ashe did not determine "the time, place, and circumstances" under which to announce that he had AIDS, it can be argued that his privacy was invaded. Furthermore, while the Schlossbergs were very aware that they would be photographed on their bike ride, that would not be considered an invasion of privacy under the definitions of Breckenridge or Patterson and Wilkins because the couple retained "control" over when they would be photographed. However, because the photo of Kennedy Schlossberg playing basketball with her son was taken through some trees with a telephoto lens and without Schl ossberg's knowledge, it could be argued that she was not in control of the situation and therefore the photo was an invasion of privacy. Cape Cod Times photo editor Arnold Miller said both photos were sized the same and designated for the same page, indicating that a page designer or wire editor decided which photo to run. Miller and the Times' news editor later agreed that if the option had been theirs, the cycling photo would have been used because the means of taking the basketball photo were questionable -- and the cycling shot was simply a better photo. In regard to the basketball photo taken in the backyard, Miller also argues: "Did they have a legal expectation of privacy at that point? You could argue that, yes, they did." Still, it is highly unlikely that Kennedy Schlossberg would ever sue over the issue because as she wrote in 1995: "By definition, information about much of a celebrity's life is deemed to be 'newsworthy' and therefore protected by the First Amendment." (Kennedy and Alderman, 1995, p. 221) However, just because the press is protected legally, is there truly a need for the public to have such access into the Kennedys' lives? Andy Gully, managing editor of the Herald, said he demands his reporters and photographers don't break the law when it comes to privacy. But ethical decisions regarding privacy are made on a case-by-case basis. But when it comes to the Kennedys, the ethical line of what constitutes an invasion of privacy is drawn differently than it is for other families. At the risk of sounding overly crass, there is very little line left for a family like the Kennedys. They are as public as it gets in this country. So almost -- but not everything -- is within the line. We pushed right up to that point. It's hard to maintain any privacy when CNN and MSNBC have a lens on you all day and night. I don't envy any public person caught in a tornado of coverage like this. But that's the reality of the 24-hour news cycle. (Gully, 2000) Many journalists, including Storin, point to reader interest regarding how intensely a story is covered. "In a sense, of course the story was overblown by all of us. JFK Jr. was a former assistant district attorney and editor of a barely successful magazine. But he was a figure of great interest to the public," Storin said. "Maybe folks don't want to admit it, but they were lapping it up. If papers weren't flying off the shelves, we would not have done as much." In a study of newspaper reporting on the private lives of candidates, Garrison and Splichal find that editors' coverage of candidates' private lives mirrors the public interest, basically giving readers what they want. Perception of readers' interests is an important component of editorial judgment - the evaluative process that molds the content of newspapers. In this study, editors - more than 90 percent of them - said they believed their readers were at least somewhat interested in the intimate affairs of public people. (Garrison and Splichal, 1994, p.180) But there are differences among the people's right to know, their need to know and their want to know. Patterson and Wilkins make the point that the right to know is a legal distinction, whereas need to know and want to know fall more under the caveat of ethical distinctions. When an argument is framed in terms of right to know, it reduces the journalist to ethical legalism: I will do precisely what the law allows. When an argument is framed in terms of need to know, however, it means that counterbalancing forces have been weighed and that bringing the information to light is still the most ethical act. _ Finally, there is the issue of want to know, which speaks to the curious human being in all of us. Want to know is the least ethically compelling rationale for acquiring information and disseminating it. We all want to know a lot of things _ But, while we may want that information, we don't really need it." (Patterson and Wilkins, 1994, p. 117) Essentially all of the stories on the JFK Jr. plane crash fell into that "want to know" category, with the possible exception being on stories regarding the government's investment in the recovery efforts and the FAA's delay in responding to the report of the missing plane. One could argue that taxpayers need to know how their money is being spent and private pilots and their passengers need to know how the FAA handles reports of missing planes. The rest of the stories about the Kennedy family, details on the crash and recovery efforts (95 percent of the stories) were just interesting tidbits, which served little purpose other than to provide fodder for small talk. During the week, all three newspapers ran very similar photographs of the Kennedy family sharing their grief. Early in the week, the Globe and the Times snapped photos of family members walking on their beach and returning from a boating trip. The Herald ran those shots as well, but also ran a photo of former Rep. Joseph Kennedy hugging a relative under what was supposed to be Rory Kennedy's wedding tent. One could argue that this photo is a clear invasion of privacy because the Kennedys were definitely not able to control whether this private moment was shared with the public. Although similar photos of the Kennedys walking on the beach were less intrusive, it could be argued that these also stepped over the privacy line. Even if the photographers stayed outside the boundary line, thereby obeying trespass laws, they had the control over the publication of those images. Yet, Times photo editor Arnold Miller takes the "right to know" perspective and points out that at no time did any of his photographers break any laws in pursuing their shots. All of our shots were taken with extreme telephoto lenses, so the family was not even aware that they were being photographed, so at the time one could argue that there was no invasion of privacy. After publication, the usual standards could be looked at. Were they in a public area? Yes. Was the photographer breaking any laws - trespass -- by capturing the image? No. Whilst I personally would not like to be in their shoes, the family did have a secure compound to retreat to, and thus I truly feel that the family's privacy was not invaded. (Miller, 2000) Miller cites Supreme Court rulings that favor his position, saying "my ethics follow the legal guidelines." Times managing editor Alicia Blaisdell-Bannon also did not consider any of the photos to be invasive but had different reasons. "I don't consider photos of this nature of a very public family and a very public event to be an invasion of privacy. This is the price of fame, of being in the public eye and reaping the advantages of that position," she said. Globe metro editor Peter Canellos also felt the photos on the beach were not an invasion of privacy but he justifies his argument by saying the Kennedys were in control of the situation. "I think they knew the photographers were on the beach and those family members like Rory and her husband went for a walk on the beach knowing they were being photographed. Other more private Kennedys, such as Ethel, stayed inside," Canellos said. The other two incidents in which it could be argued that the Kennedys' privacy was invaded were when photographs were taken of the family bringing the bodies back from the crash site and, the next day's photos of the family participating in the burial at sea. On the day the bodies were brought ashore at Woods Hole, the Kennedys tried to distract the press through reports that the bodies were being brought into another port. Still, photographers from all three newspapers captured the moment. Canellos said that Globe reporters had been in contact with the Kennedy family and he believes the family didn't have a problem with those photos being shot despite the appearance that they were attempting to avoid the papparazzi, "It is a poignant moment that would not trouble the Kennedys to see in print," Canellos said. "The word from the Kennedy family was that they were very appreciative of the Globe's coverage." MacLaughlin also believes the Kennedys were not surprised by the coverage. "We certainly expected the Kennedys to do what they needed to do to grieve in private, and I believe they expected us to do what we had to do to get the pictures, boorish and insensitive behavior notwithstanding," MacLaughlin said. Blaisdell-Bannon expressed a similar sentiment. "I think it's the Kennedy family's right to try to control the press; it's our responsibility to resist that control," she said. Storin looks at the coverage that week and says there was an invasion of privacy but that it was justified. Our policy on photos is, as stated above, to avoid closeups of grieving relatives unless the deceased is a public figure of high fame. I think this case applied. That said, yes, we the media invaded their privacy, but this is a family that has welcomed coverage of their private lives to a certain extent. I know this from personal experience. There are numerous occasions when Kennedys could avoid, e.g. at Hyannisport, tabloid cameras and yet they put themselves knowingly in a position to be photographed. They, at least some of them, encourage the cult of celebrity. If we were talking about the relatives of the Worcester firefighters who died a year ago, our coverage would be -- and was -- considerably more restrained. At least the Globe's was. (Storin, 2000) The Herald's unwritten policy is less restrictive. "We follow the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts regarding trespassing and use common sense and common decency," Gully said. "It's on a case-by-case basis." The Times does not have a written policy on the privacy issue but Blaisdell-Bannon says "Of course we don't encourage the invasion of privacy of private citizens," adding that "the Kennedys, however, are not private citizens." This, of course, leads to the question of who benefited from the photos that were published versus who was hurt. If the Kennedys felt their privacy was indeed invaded, then it could be argued that they were the injured party. As for who was served by the photos, MacLaughlin from the Herald makes the following assessment. As for who benefited, that's a hard question to answer. Certainly those who like to lift the curtain on other people's lives found some satisfaction in seeing the Kennedy grief once again. There are also, I would suggest, those who look for example in the dignity of the Kennedys. And then, of course, the media benefited because readership and viewership went up during that awful week. We didn't run those pictures to get a bump in circulation, but we knew people would want to read the stories and see the photos. Most of us cannot avoid looking at the crash scene. (McLaughlin, 2000) If John Rawls's Veil of Ignorance were to be applied to the scenario during that week in July of 1999, it could be argued that while Gully, Miller, Blaisdell-Bannon and Storin were all empathetic to what the Kennedys were going through, none based their decisions on how those decisions affected the Kennedys. Frankly, neither did Canellos, MacLaughlin or the Times news editor. If the editors had emerged from the veil in the position of the Kennedys they would have granted them a great deal more privacy. To adapt the example of Christians et. al: If I emerge from the veil as a grieving Kennedy rather than as a journalist with Cape Cod's biggest story of the year, I will opt for fair treatment of the former. (Christians, et. al., 1998, p. 16) However, one could apply John Stuart Mill's utilitarian principle of "seeking the greatest happiness for the greatest number." (Christians, et. al., 1998, p. 14) In that case, Blaisdell-Bannon argues: "Here's how our coverage served the greater good: It kept readers informed. It made our readers part of a greater community in grief. It bound us all together in a terrible tragedy." Miller adds: "Our readers got to see the efforts under way for the search, and eventual recovery. They also were able to experience, through our photography, the emotions and healing process for the Kennedy family." The arguments by both Times editors also have an air of communitarianism to them. They were providing information so the community could share in the grieving process. Use of anonymous sources The use of anonymous sources has been an issue even before the days when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein used a source known only as "Deep Throat" to topple a presidency. After the pair had conflicting reports from two anonymous sources in their coverage of the Watergate saga, the Washington Post developed a policy that there must be at least two sources for allegations made by anonymous sources. Gradually, an unwritten rule was evolving: Unless two sources confirmed a charge involving activity likely to be considered criminal, the specific allegation was not used in the paper. (Bernstein and Woodward, 1974, p. 79) Since that time, Woodward's dependence on anonymous sources has become legendary. Woodward's willingness to let sources go "off the record" is well known in Washington, D.C. Sources he consults on a regular basis know that, when Woodward is doing the interview, they will not be named in the resulting stories. Woodward's reliance on anonymous sources is compounded by his writing style. He writes almost entirely omnisciently, without attribution. (Weinberg, 1994, p. 45) Weinberg adds that Woodward is unfazed by questioning of his methods, trusting "readers to distinguish between valid and invalid information." (Weinberg, 1994, p. 45) The use of anonymous sources not only introduces the issue of the newspaper's credibility but in many cases, it opens the paper up to problems with accuracy. Whenever a journalist uses information from an unidentified source, the news consumer is being deprived of the ability to make an independent judgment about the information's credibility. The journalist is saying, "You don't need to know who this is. Trust me; I've checked out the source's reliability." Lots of news consumers quite rightly don't want to turn over total evaluation of information to journalists. They want to make up their own minds, and that requires knowing where the information came from. (Seib and Fitzpatrick, 1997, pp 104-105) There is also the danger of anonymous sources existing only in the imagination of the reporter. Such a case cost Janet Cooke the Pulitzer Prize in 1981 when she wrote about an 8-year-old heroin addict in a Post feature story titled "Jimmy's World." Coincidentally, Woodward was Cooke's editor at the time. Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of the Washington Post, recalls in his memoirs how Cooke fabricated Jimmy and her story was not questioned - despite anonymous sources - until after it won a the Pulitzer and it was revealed she had lied about her credentials to get the Post job. (Bradlee, 1995) That revelation led to the Post questioning the sources for Cooke's story and an embarrassing moment for the Post. Bradlee tells of several lessons he learned from the incident, including "Beware of stories you want to be true, for whatever reason. And beware the culture that allows unknown sources to be accepted too easily." (Bradlee, 1995, p. 448) In a memo to publisher Don Graham, Bradlee wrote: The source of information is a critically important part of any story. It gives readers the chance to decide for themselves what motives an informant may have for making information public. Accordingly, every effort must be made routinely to get information on the record with specific identification of the source. It is recognized, however, that valid reasons will exist for some source identification (to be) less than specific. In those circumstances, every effort must be made to give as precise an identification of the source as possible. (Bradlee, 1995, p.450) Even when a reporter is being honest about the information they received from an informant, the is a danger in trusting that anonymous source as the Atlanta Journal-Conctitution discovered in its coverage of Richard Jewell, a security guard at Centennial Park during the Oympic Games in Atlanta. Jewell discovered a backpack containing a bomb and was initially a hero for moving the crowd away from the bomb just minutes before it exploded. (Black and Barney, 1999) But then, an FBI source told the Journal-Constitution reporter that Jewell was a suspect in the bombing. That unnamed source caused Jewell and the media a lot of trouble. The reporter thought he was getting reliable information from a reputable source, but when Jewell was cleared many media organizations apologized and some even paid Jewell a cash settlement. The Jewell example is indicative of why, as Smith notes, most editors are reluctant to use unnamed sources. They fear (1) that too many reporters are using unnamed sources just because they are too lazy to find on-the-record sources, (2) that there is too great a risk of reporters making up things and passing them off as comments by unnamed sources, and (3) that information from unnamed sources is often either inaccurate or self-serving. (Smith, 1999) The editors at the Globe learned lesson number two when dealing with Globe columnists Mike Barnicle and Patricia Smith, both of whom were accused of fabricating sources for their columns. Both columnists have since left the Globe, and now the paper is particularly careful about its use of unnamed sources because the editors do not want to relive that dark chapter in the reputable newspaper's history. "We have specific guidelines on the use of unnamed sources, and they have been clarified and updated since the Smith/Barnicle misfortunes," Robinson said. The policy, Storin says, is basically: Everyone understands or should understand that we want on-the-record information and will use unnamed sources only after trying to get stuff on the record. In a major story like this, some officials set forth a standard ground rule that they will not be quoted and everyone agrees to it. Each reporter is supposed to be asked who his or her source is by the supervising editor. (Storin, 2000) While the Globe has a written policy on the use of unnamed sources, the Herald and the Times do not, but Gully and Blaisdell-Bannon describe their papers' respective policies. (Gully on the Herald policy, 2000) In general, we discourage overuse of unnamed sources. Whenever possible, people quoted in stories should be named and their affiliation stated. It's important to put people in any story in context, and clearly identifying them helps do that. That said, this is a competitive town and that forces the use of unnamed sources. We also cover several areas -- from the City of Boston, to the FBI to the Turnpike Authority to the corporate world --- where top officials muzzle employees. The only way to get news in to protect sources. So, in short, unnamed sources are a fact of life in those areas of coverage. It's a matter of trust with the reporter and his/her editor. On major stories with great risk, the use of those sources will be discussed with department heads, the managing editor and at times, the editor. (Blaisdell-Bannon on the Times policy, 2000) We try not to use unnamed sources often; when we do, we decide on a case-by-case basis. I don't think any of the stories from the JFK Jr. coverage suffered from our use of unnamed sources. Actually, while reporters covering the JFK Jr, crash for all three papers had a sprinkling of unnamed sources included in their reports, to date it appears all the information was accurate. However, the same could not be said for television reports. On the first day, many stations reported there were four passengers, that the plane went down off Long Island and several other false details offered by unidentified sources. Dirk Smillie notes two other instances where television networks trusted reporters using unnamed sources only to discover the information was false. Three days after Kennedy's plane disappeared, all-news channel MSNBC bulletined that the wreckage had been found. It hadn't. It would be another two days before the plane was actually located. As a commentator for NBC News, Barnicle reported that Sen. Edward Kennedy, D.-Mass., took a midnight sail to console himself over the tragedy. The story later proved false. (Smillie, 1999) One example of the Times' use of anonymous sources was in the case of the Times story on the registration washing up on John F. Kennedy Jr.'s own beach. In that instance, Schechtman, Blaisdell-Bannon and the news editor discussed the issue of the credibility of a single unnamed source. When reporters Karen Jeffrey and Paula Peters confirmed the information from four different credible witnesses, the Times ran with the story. Similar scrutiny was shown to a Times story on the condition of the plane's engine. Still, the Times relied on unnamed sources less than the other two newspapers. In the first five days of coverage, the Times had 15 references to unnamed sources, such as "Kennedy family members," "investigators," "a source familiar with the aircraft," "officials familiar with underwater recovery of plane wreckage," "a source," "state and local sources," "an elderly woman in a white convertible," "one motorist in a pickup truck," "a West Dennis summer resident who declined to identify herself," "federal officials with the National Transportation Safety Board," "reports," "a Massachusetts man who didn't want to be identified," "another private pilot," and "a Coast Guard official speaking on condition of anonymity." Blaisdell-Bannon said she didn't believe the use of unnamed sources in these cases hurt the paper's credibility or put it in danger of having to defend inaccurate information. It's always better to use named sources; unnamed sources always take away some credibility of the information being published. But we don't use them so often at the Times that the reader would think, "Oh, sure, another anonymous source." I think readers generally trust that the information is accurate. (Blaisdell-Bannon, 2000) In that same period, the Globe attributed information to 28 unnamed sources, including "an FAA source," "a high-ranking federal transportation official," "federal safety investigators," "an official with the NTSB," "federal investigators," "neighbors," "a business associate in Canada," "one analyst who asked not to be identified," "a former staff member for (George) magazine," "a highly placed federal aviation source familiar with the investigation," "a spokeswoman," "search coordinators," "officials at Harvard," "associates," "sources," "the friend who spoke on condition of anonymity," "the search team" "a source familiar with the investigation," "search coordinators," "sources within the FAA," "high-ranking FAA officials," "FAA officials" and simply "officials." Canellos said there were other uses of unnamed sources, such as reporters who spoke to divers in a bar, that he and other editors decided not to run. The Herald led the trio in its use of anonymous sources with 41 cases, including "one Kennedy family source at the compound," "team members," "one congressman requesting anonymity," "the limousine driver who drove them to the airport," "FAA officials," "the vacationing father from New York," "a fellow golfer," "one high-ranking state police official," "sources close to the investigation," "the Herald has learned," and a couple references in a gossip column that just quoted "our spy." MacLaughlin, the deputy managing editor/news at the Herald, defended the use of anonymous sources by pointing out that the information has turned out to be accurate in all cases, so the paper's use of the unnamed sources didn't hurt the paper's credibility. "In general, it often comes down to a matter of trust. Do we trust the reporter and the source? As for affecting our credibility, I think readers accept sources unless we repeatedly get it wrong. We didn't get it wrong," he said. If we apply Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative, then everyone should be treated the same - either name everyone or don't name anyone. However, Kant's "realm of ends" says we should not treat others simply as tools or instruments to our own end. Since every person should be treated as an end in to themselves, the newspapers actually did the right thing in protecting the identities of the sources. Since the reporters kept their promises not to name the sources and the papers provided their readers with the truth, one could argue Kant would support the use of anonymous sources in this case. Although none of the revelations provided by anonymous sources matched the allegations of sexual misconduct made by the unidentified women in the Brock Adams case, an ethical analysis of using unnamed sources in that case can also be applied here. _ allowing Adams's accusers to remain off the record did not substantially diminish the overall credibility of the report or the paper itself. It had the further advantage of allowing readers some insight into the difficult decisions journalists must make when reporting the private activities of public figures. (Wilkins, 1994, p. 160) From a communitarian standpoint, the editors were all attempting to share information with the community while also allowing members of the community to retain their anonymity and participate in the coverage. While the community does not get to assess the credibility of the sources, it's important to acknowledge that those sources are also members of the community. Because the information turned out to be accurate in all cases, a utilitarian would argue the editors sought the "greatest happiness for the greatest number" because it provided the readership with information it sought while not causing any harm to the Kennedy family or the government agencies. The two other choices would be to not provide the information, which would not serve the readers, or print the source's names and affiliations. While this would allow the readers to assess the credibility of the sources, it might also damage the relationship between the source and the Kennedy family or the agency for which the source works. That would not benefit the source, the family or the papers' readerships. No matter what the editors' reasoning was, the use of unnamed sources in this case is ethically defensible. The issue of competition Everybody denounces pack journalism, including the men who form the pack. Any self-respecting journalist would sooner endorse incest than come out in favor of pack journalism. It is is the classic villain of any campaign year. Many reporters and journalism professionals blame it for everything that is shallow, obvious, meretricious, misleading or dull in American campaign coverage. (Crouse, 1973, p. 8) It wasn't a campaign year, but make no mistake about it, the pack was at the entrance to the Kennedy compound within hours of the revelation that JFK Jr.'s plane was missing. By Sunday afternoon, hundreds of journalists were at the Kennedy Compound. More than 1,000 journalists flocked to Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard that week. John Painter's description of the media frenzy during the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan assault scandal is similar to the scene in Hyannisport five years later. The Oregonian had the home-court advantage - the source and knowledge of the lay of the land - so most of the other reporters, with a few exceptions, were reduced to chasing rumor and innuendo, reporting speculation or parroting The Oregonian. The normal reluctance to pass along gossip or conjecture all but disappeared _(Painter, 1994, p. 30) _ So the media went bottom fishing, seeking out friends, relatives, ex-boyfriends, school chums, former teachers, childhood playmates and neighbors. They poked through driving records, checked for criminal rapsheets, inspected gun purchases and looked at any other official or semi-official document they could lay their hands on. (Painter, 1994, p. 32) Compare that with Smillie's description of the coverage following the JFK Jr. crash. Sociologists, psychologists, historians, aviation experts, political scientists, and those who bumped into JFK Jr. in an elevator converged in a haze of speculation. (Smillie, 1999, p.10) While the Times, Globe and Herald each felt compelled to have reporters join the pack, either at NTSB press conferences or outside the Kennedy compound, each paper sent many more reporters out away from the pack in order to avoid what Seib and Fitzpatrick describe as "the sameness" of pack journalism. It is the way the pack works that affects the product that the news consumer receives. The issue is sameness - the dominance of a conventional wisdom within the pack that is easy to subscribe to and that smothers initiative. _ Reporters' reliance on the pack's collective thesis limits the range of ideas presented to the public. (Seib and Fitzpatrick, 1997, 132-134) Blaisdell-Bannon recalls: We couldn't always avoid being part of the pack -- being at group press conferences, etc. But we tried to mine our own local sources for stories we thought might be off the beaten path -- like a story from local divers saying the Coast Guard should use them, and local fishermen, to hone in on the wreckage because they knew the waters better than outsiders. (Blaisdell-Bannon, 2000) It was primarily because of the independent news-gathering efforts that the Times, Globe and Herald held the home-court advantage. That may explain why fewer mistakes were made by these local papers than were made by their national competitors. Still, it could be argued the papers fell into what Ehrlich calls a social and cultural competition. This is a competition centered around an ethos which holds that it is right and inevitable to measure one's performance consistently against that of others and that one should thrill in victory and agonize in defeat. The competitive ethos helps news workers understand and control their work, but it also contributes to shallow journalism and acts to homogenize rather than diversify the news. (Ehrlich, 1995, p. 208) Storin said that while the Globe dealt with the competition from the other media, his paper tried to take a different approach from what others were offering. First and foremost, we want to do a good job on our own terms, and various decisions we made reflected that. You will find there is relatively little coverage about the Kennedy mystique, the general celebrity and gossip that attends to that family etc. Nor a great glorification of John, compared to other media. We did not particularly focus on the Herald or the Times, but in various ways we feel competitive with both. (Storin, 2000) At the Times, Blaisdell-Bannon recalled that while there was a pressure to "scoop the rest of the media" she didn't make any decisions she would later regret just to beat another paper to the punch. We talked about the competition throughout the event and its aftermath. We felt it was our story -- we owned a significant part of it, since it happened right off our coast. We wanted to tailor our coverage to areas where we thought we had inside knowledge and inside sources. (Blaisdell-Bannon, 2000) Miller agreed. "How could we let the Globe or the Herald get the story, and not us when it is happening in our coverage area? We HAD to have the story or photo." But Gully said he didn't want the Herald to get beat either, so he was throwing massive resources at the coverage just as the Times and Globe did. The thought was the same as it is every day in this newsroom: Get it first. The pressure was obviously greater because there were thousands of people competing on this, including almost round-the-clock on cable TV. So we were under the gun all day, every day. But this newsroom is great under fire and people responded beautifully. A lot of people on this staff eat up this kind of competition. In that respect, it's fun to compete. (Gully, 2000) From a utilitarian perspective, it can be argued that the competitive atmosphere among these three papers served the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Because none of the three papers sacrificed accuracy for a need to get the story first, readers gained a greater understanding of what the Kennedys were going through and, as Blaisdell-Bannon put it, were able to mourn with the Kennedys. From a communitarian standpoint the community would have benefited from a sharing of resources and information because then they could get the information from a single news source. But the American press culture differs from the Japanese society of "kisha-kurabu," where journalists share information, and American readers have grown accustomed to competition among media outlets. (Akhavan-Majid, 1990) Conclusions In considering whether the local journalists involved were ethical in their coverage of the Kennedy tragedy, one must look at who they were serving with their reports. As mentioned previously, none were applying Rawl's Veil of Ignorance because the concern was not for what it must be like for a Kennedy to endure this onslaught of media. None of the editors in this scenario based their efforts on what it was like for the subject. Despite the arguments presented by Storin and Canellos that the Kennedys did not object to the Globe's coverage, that was not a driving concern in any of the three newsrooms at the time the tragedy was being reported. The pressure was put on photographers to get that personal shot, on reporters to get that inside information and on the editors to think of angles before the news appeared in a competitor's paper. Therefore, in applying Rawls' philosophy all of the local journalists failed the ethics test when it comes to privacy invasion, reliance on anonymous sources and letting competition affect them. However, from a practical standpoint, it can be argued that it is not the media's role to weigh the effect on the news subject so heavily. All of the editors involved agree that their role was not to serve the Kennedys but to serve their readers. In a utilitarian sense, it can be argued that all three factors - increased competition, use of unnamed sources to present more information and revealing photos - all served "the greatest number." Indeed, some validity can be found in the arguments presented by Blaisdell-Bannon and McLaughlin that allowing others the opportunity to share in the Kennedys' grieving process helped the readers in their own healing process. Applying Kantian philosophy in judging the journalists' behavior, however, is not as clear cut. Increased newsstand sales, awards won by both the Herald and the Times for their coverage, and outside media attention and publicity given to the local papers, all indicate that the newspapers gained from this tragedy. Therefore, while it may not have been the editors' intention to use the Kennedys as an instrument to the papers' own ends - even an end as noble as serving the readers' needs - it can be argued that is precisely what happened. In addition, the statements by the editors indicate that Kant's Categorical Imperative does not apply to the Kennedys. They are different from other families because of their prominence and another standard is applied. However, taking a step away from the philosophers and into the real world of the Harding coverage, the Jewell case and the O.J. Simpson trial, the local journalists examined in this study generally fared better in their ability to ethically justify their decisions. With the exception of some photos, which, it can be argued, invaded the privacy of the Kennedy family, the editors at the papers appear to have applied sound ethical judgments in their decision-making. While the Globe is the only paper of the three with written ethical policies, ethical principles were discussed at the other papers as well. The interviews indicate more ethical discussions take place in the Times newsroom than in either Boston newsroom, but all appear to consider journalism ethics in their decisions. The exception to this is that the interviews indicate the photo departments at the papers could benefit from a discussion of privacy issues and the ethics involved, rather than relying on what the law allows. Miller said he met with his staff at the end of each day during the coverage to discuss such issues as privacy invasion, but it's not clear whether enough consideration was given to the perspective of the subject in the photograph. However, that said, it does not appear that any of the photographers at the three papers crossed the boundary of what the industry considers responsible journalism. But this case study would indicate that competition has an impact on journalists' ethical standards of what is appropriate behavior. Would there be as strong a reliance on unnamed sources or such intimate photographs if one did not feel the breath of competition? There also appears to be a link between the photographs taken and use of and use of unnamed sources. While one can invade a subject's privacy visually, the other does so through informants who don't want the subject to recognize them as the source of the information. This indicates information or emotions the subject does not wish to reveal to the public. Therefore, is it appropriate - or more importantly - is there a need for this information to be passed onto the readers, whether it be by words or photos? Furthermore, is competition and the readers' desire to know - or see - sufficient justification for wrestling control of the subject's privacy away from him or her? While it is no more possible to erase any mistakes made in the coverage of JFK Jr. plane crash than it is to bring back the three victims of that tragic flight, at least the questions raised in this case study can be applied in other newsrooms. Hopefully, the principles will be discussed - as they appear to have been to some extent in these newsrooms - before the deadline pressure is applied in a similar spot news situation. [1] 1 The author of this paper was the news editor at the Cape Cod Times at the time of the JFK Jr. plane crash. 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