Michael Josephson is one of the nation’s most sought-after and quoted ethicists. Founder and president of the Josephson Institute, he has conducted more than 1,000 programs for more than 100,000 leaders across nearly every spectrum of society.
  The youngest person ever to be awarded tenure at a major law school (age 28), he taught law for almost 20 years, then founded a publishing company and a national chain of bar-exam preparation courses. In 1985 he sold his businesses and established the nonprofit Josephson Institute, from which he takes no salary or other reimbursement. All fees and honoraria from his services support the Institute and its mission.

[From www.josephsoninstitute.org]

   Michael Josephson, a graduate of UCLA and UCLA law school, was a law professor for almost 20 years at the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Loyola (Los Angeles). In 1987, he left academia to devote himself to the work of the Joseph & Edna Josephson Institute for the Advancement of Ethics, a nonprofit corporation he founded in honor of his parents, in Marina del Rey, California.

    Since then, he has conducted more than 150 programs for well over 10,000 people, working with reporters, editors, politicians, government employees, business executives, judges, lawyers, doctors, military officers and educators. Mr. Josephson is called from time to time to testify before Congress on the subject of ethics. When I picked him up at the airport in Palm Springs, he had flown in from Juneau, Alaska, where he had that day signed a contract with the State of Alaska to write a Code of Ethics for the Alaska Legislature. This interview was conducted before and after his keynote speech to the 29th Annual Convention of the California Association of Osteopaths.

    Eyes laughing, the excellent attorney's mind ticking over like a well-tuned engine, his proficiency with the subject matter is grabbing your full attention within seconds. An animated speaker who is obviously enjoying himself -- waving his arms, modulating his voice from a husky, near-whisper when he is being funny and personal, to a more commanding tone when he wants to make a point -- he does not have an imposing physical presence. His hair a bit too long and suit a tad too large, the scholarly image works to his advantage: the audience relaxes, realizing that they are not going to be scolded by some overbearing figure and made to feel like naughty children. But, soon enough they know that they have been naughty adults and are nodding in abashed agreement, their peccadilloes exposed and excuses deflated. Josephson will pose a moral dilemma to the audience, answer it by giving the common justification for not doing the ethical thing, and explode, laughing, waving his arms, "Bullshit!"

    Josephson is not a theoretician, he describes himself as a "nuts and bolts man."  His admonitions took on a very intense and almost personal tone during our interview about journalistic ethics.

PW: Before we begin with the subject of this interview, may I ask you a personal question?  What was your reason for starting the Institute?

MJ: I had been teaching law in law school and assigned to teach the ethics class in 1976. Up until that time I never thought much about it. In the course of beginning to teach ethics that first year, I came up against the fact that I was viewing ethics from a very legalistic position: the notion that if it's legal, it's ethical; if it's permissible it's proper. In 1976, my son was born; it caused me to reflect on whether or not the way I was approaching ethics with these young men and women who were going to be lawyers was how I wanted my son to be raised. I was very uncomfortable with that. That was the beginning of a search to find something I was more comfortable with. I graduated in the '60's. I didn't want to be self-righteous or judgmental, all of those things I hated, like moral imperialism. At the same time I felt that moral relativism (having no values at all) was no way to raise a child. In 1985, I sold my legal publishing company for a lot of money and started the Institute. I do this full time, drawing no salary.

PW: The obvious lead-off question on the subject of the moral obligations of a free press is: does the First Amendment, which gives journalists freedoms and protections not given to any other group except the clergy, demand inferentially any particular moral obligations in return?  

MJ: I think the First Amendment does. But I would like to say I don't like the way the question is phrased for the simple reason that it is legalistic; if we only look at whether we are required as a compensation for our rights to give other duties, that is legalism. The moral obligations of a journalist flow from the First Amendment in part, but they also flow from the calling of what it is to be a journalist. My notions of what a journalist's ethical obligations are arise from the very special role that journalism plays in a free and democratic society. I think there are three key things: the obligation to be a vigilant watchdog, over not just government, but all other social institutions; to be a teacher, to tell us things we ought to know (sometimes we don't want to know) about the environment, discrimination, things like that; and thirdly, a conscience that constantly confronts us with the inconsistencies between our values and our behavior. When journalists are performing those three functions, they are performing a task which justifies First Amendment protection. On the other hand, when journalists do other things which are perfectly permissible like entertain, cover the lighter side, the fluff, that is not so sufficiently worthy that we would view it any differently than any other commercial venture which deserves some protection, but not the special protections -- not the special libel laws, not the special antitrust exemptions -- that are afforded to the press.

PW: Should we ever protect each other from the truth?  Under what circumstances as journalists is this ethical, if ever?                          

MJ: The journalist's primary role is to develop the truth, not because of some self-seeking "scoopism" -- journalists hide an awful lot behind "the public's right to know" -- to justify behaviors that are really nothing more than competition, where there is absolutely no social benefit, only one paper scooped another, is an indication of behavior that shows that self-interest is at stake. On the other hand, there are a few situations where the publication of something could be highly dangerous: the publication of lists of undercover agents, military secrets, of things that on balance the public interest is against. I approach this one when I do seminars for newspapers by presenting what I call the "presumption of publishability."  If it otherwise passes your newsworthy test of being important and accurate you should publish it unless there is a very compelling public interest against it. You have to be very careful because people are always asserting  "national interest" as an excuse not to publish things. The argument that it will hurt a present policy is certainly not enough, in my opinion. On the other hand, during war where lives are at stake, there are times when papers should and have exercised restraint. There is a tendency now for the media to become more and more involved in collateral things, private lives, things of that nature. If I were to look on the spectrum from the Philadelphia Inquirer to the National Enquirer, there is  an abuse of telling everyone the truth if you don't tell things that are important. We all have a limited amount of time and attention just like the paper has a limited news hole. We should use that for important things.

PW: The Founding Fathers gave us the First Amendment so that the whole truth could strengthen the nation. Is there an unconscious fear at work among government officials and the media that to tell the whole truth might shatter the nation?

MJ: I think in individual cases people who are directly involved in a process tend to rationalize that if you knew about Iran-Contra it would destroy the country. The country is incredibly durable and the nature of a good democracy like ours is we can withstand a huge amount of things. The fact is, there may be some embarrassment, never enough to justify not telling the truth. So our highest and best interest is to have an aggressive press that holds government's feet to the fire. At the same time it ought to be fair. There are times when criticisms are strident, they are unreasonable, they are picky, they take things out of context, so searching for scandal and error and omission that it makes it hard for other public servants to do their jobs. I would like to see the press no less aggressive, but more thoughtful about what and how they do it. The journalism profession has a total self-rationalization mechanism, they hide behind the "people's right to know" to justify all manner of conduct that is unacceptable. There are all kinds of conflicts of interest that are arising in greater and greater scope in journalism that remain totally uncovered, certainly not covered with the level of insightful criticism that you cover other shortcomings. Journalism is losing its soul in a very major way. The 1990's are going to be incredibly challenging for journalists. The 70's and 80's were maybe the high point of journalism history, and the 90's will either continue that or be the beginning of the decline. Frankly, I think all the signs are that it will be the beginning of the decline; not that journalists are worse or less interested, but because of the business structure that has now surrounded journalism in such a major way, large public companies merging and developing conflicts of interest like Time/Warner. It is going to be terribly difficult to be an independent, courageous journalist in the 1990's.

PW: You have written that the press must remain independent in order to do its job. Would that not also mean that individual journalists have a moral obligation to remain independent and not go along with pack journalism?  

MJ: Absolutely. If there is going to be any chance of resisting this [decline of] the journalistic mission, it's going to be individual journalists who simply say, "I won't do this."  Part of it is [resisting] pack journalism, because that is just one way unthinking participation in a process occurs, but it may be objecting to your own managing editor's theories on what is and is not newsworthy as you find the editors more and more being intimidated by advertisers; for instance, auto companies saying they will boycott you for writing stories on some of the frauds dealing with the sales of cars. I know of examples where it has happened in the United States. We now have a newspaper in Alaska, the second biggest in the state, purchased by a major oil company [VECO], a major lobbyist fined several times for lobbying activities, and they now own this newspaper. The president of that oil company has installed himself as the publisher of the newspaper. Journalists have an obligation to stand up and say, "These are the rules and conditions under which I will work, otherwise I will not work here."  If they don't do that, they are simply prostitutes. They need the support of The Society for Professional Journalists, The Association of News Editors, and all of your groups. If you don't form a momentum to self-regulate and to protect the real mission and calling, every one of you separately is going to be so afraid for your job, you will simply sell out the greatest aspiration of your calling.

PW: How can an individual journalist exercise individual judgment about the relative importance of a story and still remain on the "inside" and seen as a loyal member of the corps if the pack is going the other way?

MJ: First of all, there is a difference between courage and self-righteousness. Why do you think that is something you ought not to cover?  There is something to be said for the mere fact that it is being covered that creates pressure to cover it. The story is the story; it is often how  you cover it. If pack journalism takes a story with momentum -- Gary Hart or Dan Quayle, for example, where the stories took on endless momentum -- individual journalists and journalistic organizations should put a very different spin on it. Journalism's worst moment in the 80's was the way you handled the 1988 elections. I think it was awful; I think you got totally paid for without realizing it. The broadcast media would put on "spin doctors," who were admittedly spin doctors, as if they were commentators. There were no real debates. That is a case where you have to ask, "What is my journalistic agenda?"  Each journalistic institution, just like every professor who teaches a class or every author who writes a book, has an obligation to decide on what is important. And then they should be judged on how effectively that judgment carries out its purpose. Today there is nothing worse to a journalist than being scooped. The fact of the matter is that it may be a story that isn't worth having. So what if somebody else has it?  Get your own good story rather than follow the other one.

PW: On to television news coverage. Ben Bagdikian, the author of Media Monopoly, has stated that, "The Reagan people recognized, to a greater extent than those before them, you can entice television with just the kind of footage they love, which is the kind of footage that keeps an audience from turning the switch, not too many words, not too many bothersome ideas, but some action, something pleasing, and brief. Reagan was not the first one to have that perception, he was simply better at it."  Ronald Reagan certainly played to the national myth and network television seems to fall all over itself to play along. Yet the networks from time to time air excellent and balanced coverage of abortion, gun ownership, the educational crisis in public schools, etc. Do the networks have the moral courage to confront issues directly but not to make the White House discuss the issues?

MJ: Let's not lose sight of the fact that Jack Kennedy was also very effective at dealing with the media and giving the media what it wanted. But, I will agree with Mr. Bagdikian that [the Reagan] administration was the most effective at knowing how to get something on the air. I don't think the issue is one of courage alone with the media. Again it becomes one of business. The real problem is managing editors, producers, report to business people and they are subject to ratings. It used to be that the news was considered a money-losing proposition and didn't have to be a moneymaking proposition. Today it is one of the most moneymaking propositions. On a per-minute basis it is one of the least expensive kinds of shows to put on. Therefore there is this enormous demand to make sure you are attracting the widest possible audience. Whether you are teaching at a university level or writing a newspaper or book,  we know that if you "dumb down" your message, you increase your audience. You change the character of your audience, but you get more of them. We recognize that television, and for that matter the print media, is fundamentally an advertising business which wants the most amount of people. The difficulty for a news director is how to show five minutes of this speech knowing for a fact that the attention span (and of course it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because attention span has been trained by the quick sound bite) is such that few people would sit there and watch five minutes, even if they were the highlights, of a good speech. So, they are a prisoner of their own goals to reach the broadest number of people. That's why it's good that we have C-SPAN, CNN. I think by and large we are going to find that the networks are not going to be the most effective carriers of news; hey have business pressures that make them unable to do it. They do these great programs [such as recent network specials on abortion and guns], both for prestige and because occasionally people will watch them. But we cannot count on them to do it day in and day out because it will  not make the most dollars.

PW: Lesley Stahl, CBS news correspondent, ran a piece that verbally was quite negative about Reagan, but the visuals, which were meant to be illustrative of the man's hypocrisy -- such as Reagan attending the opening of an old-age home and passing the torch at the Special Olympics when he had just attempted to cut federal funding for the disabled and housing for the elderly -- delighted the White House. Stahl was fearful that the White House would be upset with her, but a White House official said, "They [the public] didn't hear what you said, they only saw those pictures."  How can television journalists justify allowing themselves to be manipulated like this?

MJ: The problem is that it is still a relatively new media without  the kind of psychological command over all of its influences. I would have thought, as Lesley Stahl did, that her words were being associated directly with the pictures. If you show the visuals that they are trying to sell -- they didn't call Ronald Reagan "the teflon president" for nothing -- the question will be to master the media more effectively. If the media itself begins to understand the impact as well as some of these spin doctors understand it, they will then decide what message they want to convey and tailor their presentation to that. One would imagine today that if Lesley Stahl would want to make the same editorial type of piece, she would do it differently. We have to understand that communication is a very complex thing. Where do you put the meat of your story?  Today, some stories are so cutesy at the beginning they never get to what the story is about. The takeout quote is just an example of the sound bite in the print media. Now you hardly see a newspaper or a magazine that doesn't use cutouts significantly. If Stahl will wrestle with this and make sure that her desire to present pretty pictures doesn't overcome her desire to tell a meaningful and important story, she will be a good journalist. On the other hand, if she doesn't and the desire to wallpaper dominates, then she won't be a good journalist. I believe that people like Lesley Stahl are really very conscientious; they are very thoughtful about this process and are going to make changes. Seeing the problem is the beginning of a solution.

PW: Bill Moyers asked Bob Squier, a political consultant, the following question, which we are going to pose to you: "[What would happen] if TV executives said, 'We are simply not going to run that photo opportunity, that image you put up there for us, because it is empty, it is not true, it has no relationship to reality?'"

MJ: I think that is absolutely what they should do. If it wasn't a bluff, they would change and try to find something you would run. They only are running these photo ops because that is what the TV and newspapers are going for. By the same token, after the debates the media were bringing in the political hacks to comment. I shouldn't call them hacks, but they were people with well-formed political positions, for example [John] Sununu, to tell you his perception on how well George Bush did in the debate. That's absolutely stupid!  There is no coloration of objectivity. There is such a heavy emphasis today in some of these TV things on controversy rather than deliberation and discourse. I have seen some fairly good journalists pushed into very extreme positions because that is the kind of drama that television wants. That is a concern. That goes back to one of your early questions about the obligation of the individual journalist or a journalistic institution to keep its eye on the ball and ask, "What are we here for?  We are here to deliver to the public important relevant information about how the process works, to inform them so that they can exercise their citizenship responsibly. We cannot do that if we allow ourselves to be co-opted by even our own needs and desires to appeal to a broad massive audience."  The real teacher learns to stimulate and inspire and educate in spite of the students. You have to take boring subjects and make them interesting. I have editors ask, "How are you going to write about solid waste disposal?  That is a terribly boring subject."  It depends on how you tell it. I don't know how you do it, but it is important to do and that is your job. Find a way. It's like asking a teacher, "How do you make accounting interesting?"  I know some accounting professors who are terrific and some who are dull as can be. It is how you present it. It is journalism's task, assignment, mission, job to find a way to make all the important things interesting and captivating enough so that the public will be educated in spite of itself.

This article was published in the February 1991 edition of PressWoman, the magazine of the National Federation of Press Women. At the time I was the Ethics / First Amendment Chair of the California Press Women, the state chapter.