Jerry Ceppos delivers the Ruhl Lecture. (Photo by Jack Liu)

by Gary Thill, MS '98

If newspapers ever hope to regain the public's trust and reclaim their lost readership, they must stop defining fairness by the "secret rules of journalism" and start defining it by the rules of readers.

That was the message San Jose Mercury News Executive Editor Jerry Ceppos had for a capacity crowd at the 1998 Ruhl Lecture.

Ceppos, recalling criticism his own paper recently received in the press, said he learned this lesson after journalism was "done to him"and the Mercury News. It happened when Ceppos's paper ran a controversial series called "Dark Alliance,"an investigative series that linked the Central Intelligence Agency with Los Angeles's crack cocaine epidemic and the Contras, a rebel group in Central America that received financial support from the U.S. The series suggested the CIA had a hand in funneling profits from drug sales to the Contras.

The series quickly garnered heavy criticism from heavyweight newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, which conducted their own investigations that didn't support the Mercury News' conclusions.

"We need a real-time ethics class that deals with the down and dirty issues of fairness." -- Jerry Ceppos

After initially standing by the series, Ceppos made national headlines by admitting in his own paper that the series had flaws and drew some inaccurate conclusions. Ceppos said he was taken aback by how much media attention his admission received.

"Even journalists think it's news when one of their own admits they're not sure about a story," he said.

Ceppos said the reaction of the public and the media to the series and to his later admission that it may have been flawed showed him just how skewed the secret rules of journalism are--and how unfair they can be. It was use of the secret rules of journalism that caused the flaws in the Mercury News' CIA/crack investigation. He said the story oversimplified the crack epidemic and didn't give the CIA a chance to comment on accusations against it.

"In short, we saw things in black and white terms," he said. "But life is not black and white."

It also showed him how important it is for journalists to adopt a new idea of fairness more in line with the public's.

"It's these secret rules that will kill journalism. It is not the Internet or shrinking attention spans or anything else," Ceppos said.

"When readers stop believing we are fair and accurate--in big ways and little--they'll stop reading us."

Ceppos named four inherently unfair practices behind the secret rules:

• not listening to readers' complaints;
• framing and writing stories before getting all sides;
• refusing to explain actions or decisions to the public;
• pretending issues are black and white.

After the story ran, Ceppos saw the rules turned against him--and his paper. He said one paper quoted him in a story about the series that obviously was already framed, while most others that covered it didn't even ask him for comment. "It was as if I lost my voice," Ceppos said.

Ceppos talks with professor John Russial. (photo by Jack Liu)

What should newspapers do?

The answers, Ceppos said, are "shamefully easy."

First, journalists must start listening to reader complaints. This includes freely admitting when mistakes are made and possibly hiring a mediator. Second, reporters need to research all sides before framing stories. Third, newspapers must start using better judgment in using anonymous sources. Fourth, editors must consider the timing of stories to ensure stories get fair play. And fifth, papers must establish standards surrounding fairness and accuracy.

Finally, Ceppos encouraged journalism schools across the country to create a new class that addresses the issues of fairness and accuracy with which newspapers and journalists must grapple on a daily basis. Such a class might have students write an investigative story and then invite the sources in to critique it, he said.

"We need a real-time ethics class that deals with the down and dirty issues of fairness," he said. "Because whatever we're doing in our classrooms and newsrooms isn't working."

Ceppos was the 22nd lecturer in the Ruhl Symposium on Ethics in Journalism. The widow of the late Robert W. Ruhl, longtime editor of the Medford Mail-Tribune, established the endowment for the symposium in 1973 to create a forum for the discussion of journalism ethics.