The APME Ethics Code p. 13

By: Tony Case

After intense discussion, the Associated Press
Managing Editors membership votes to adopt ethics code sp.

IT'S FINALLY OVER.
After a brutal, well-publicized wrestling match, Associated Press Managing Editors members overwhelmingly voted to adopt a revised ethics code this month at their annual meeting in Philadelphia.
The ethics issue had provoked intense discussion since the Minneapolis convention last fall, at which the ethics committee proposed replacing the group's concise statement of principles with a 10-page set of restrictive guidelines.
The revision was met with much skepticism and received little support within APME.
Critics maintained the longer code would only provide ammunition for libel suits, while another contingent held that the press cannot do enough to show an increasingly mistrustful public it has principles.
The lengthy proposal was replaced with a shorter revision that addresses issues such as diversity in staffing and coverage, journalists and community involvement, plagiarism, and electronic photo manipulation (E&P, Aug. 13, p. 18).
That version was approved by 73% of Philadelphia conferees ? but not before those on both sides of the debate had their say.
Mel Opotowsky, managing editor of the Press-Enterprise, Riverside, Calif., urged his colleagues to adopt the code, calling the longer guidelines "an enormous corporate checklist."
But Clarence Pennington, editor and publisher of the Review Times in Fostoria, Ohio, referred to the final draft as "a capitulation" and "an embrace of pablum."
And Ray Sullivan, editor of the Lima (Ohio) News, maintained it was "self-serving hogwash."
He questioned how APME "thinks it can serve my community and my readers or any one individual newspaper's readers with a code of ethics that will do anything except give lawyers a chance to take us to court . . . . I really think it's setting us up."
Louisville Courier-Journal vice president and editor David Hawpe, the APME ethics committee chair and one of those who prepared the earlier, controversial code, said the existing guidelines needed updating because of demographic, economic, technological and lifestyle changes over the last two decades.
Hawpe stressed that the guide was intended only as a model, not a bible.
The editor doesn't share the rather paranoid view of media lawyers and many of his colleagues, that statements of principles are an invitation to sue news organizations.
"I think we have an obligation at each newspaper to tell those who work for us, with some degree of clarity and precision, how we expect them to operate," he told convention attendees, "and I don't think we ought to do it by jawboning in the middle of the newsroom alone."
It may have been the burning issue of the day, but ethics wasn't the only matter that kept APME members rapt. It was a productive week in many ways for the 350 people who went to Philly for the 61st APME meeting.
This was the third consecutive year APME saw increased attendance at its convention. The Boston gathering in 1988 drew a record 650 registrants, compared to a miserable showing of 250 in Detroit in 1991.
APME released findings of a year-long survey that revealed what AP members thought about the news cooperative (see p. 14). AP got high marks, especially for national and international coverage, but respondents said state and local reporting needs improvement.
Top AP brass were on hand to provide a direct pipeline between subscribers and the executive suite.
President and CEO Lou Boccardi ? who was omnipresent during the convention, speaking on panels, showing up at daily sessions and receptions ? announced early in the program, "We're here, and we want to hear from you."