Josephson tells attendees 'Hire for character, train for skills'

Michael Josephson emphasized the use of written standards by newspapers. Photo by Mark Regan

Michael Josephson says he loves the newspaper industry. Yet he told editors at the API/ASNE forum, "Newsroom Reporting an Editing Standards: "

"You guys are the thinnest-skinned of anybody I ever met! "

"By and large, you guys have the most informal training of any group I know that does important stuff! " he said. "Can you imagine . . .if police got the amount of training you get? "

Regarding anonymous sourcing, Josephson recalled that editors were talking about taking action on the subject a decade ago: "I don't know where you guys go with this, other than to beat yourself up every now and then. "

Josephson is a lawyer and president of the Josephson Institute of Ethics in Marina Del Ray, California, which he founded to conduct programs with educators, media companies, major corporations and state and local officials on character and ethics. Josephson, who is well known to newspaper executives, was the only non-journalist attending the forum at API in Reston, Virginia, this week.

"I have seen see a lot of absorption (among you) with issues that aren't essential, " he told the 31 editors at one point. "Public service is the thing that really gives you constitutional protection. The more you become an economic entity (concerned about profit margins), the more the public will begin to not look at you as a service anymore, " he warned.

Josephson was the final presenter at the API/ASNE forum, which was precipitated by episodes of fabrication such as Jayson Blair's at The New York Times. Recognizing the group's knowledge that management had faltered in that and other cases, Josephson served up a list of his thoughts on reporting and editing standards that he once recommended be adopted by journalists.

Josephson describes the journalist's mission as threefold: To be a watchdog, a teacher and a conscience. He described journalism as a calling rather than a business. To function, the public must trust it and its members. Gaining that trust requires competence, credibility and responsibility.

"Hire for character, train for skills, " he writes. This issue is complicated by the fact that the present and future generation of journalists will come from a pool of employees with a depressingly high disposition "to lie, cheat and steal. "

For example, surveys by his institute show that 74 percent of high school students and 37 percent of college students admit they cheated on an exam at least once in the past 12 months. In light of this and other facts, Josephson warned that newspapers must institute ethical standards that are universally understood, accepted, adhered to and enforced.

His list of truth for bosses includes these:
· Everyone rationalizes, including you.
· There are lots of things you don't know and lots of people who hope you don't find out. In other words, the most dangerous problems are the ones you don't know about. Complacency and overconfidence about ethics is a major vulnerability.
· What you allow, you encourage. In other words, there is no level to which people won't sink.
· People overestimate their ethical reputation and ability to resist temptation.
· If you hire, retain or promote a person of doubtful character or shaky integrity, you'll eventually pay the price.
· Being truthful is more than telling the truth.
· Little lies kill credibility.
· Recognizing a problem is not solving it; saying it is not doing it.