ETHICS IN AMERICA...

...is an amazing educational television show upon which I stumbled while watching Austin Community College's cable access channel a little over a decade ago. Ordinarily, I might not have even taken the couple of minutes needed to see how interesting the show is--I might have just flipped on by, settling, perhaps, on the gyrating pelvises and bare midriffs of MTV's The Grind, which delighted me so much back in those days. But, thanks to a cool article I had recently read, "Why Americans Hate the Media," in my then favorite magazine Atlantic Monthly, I had advance notice that Ethics in America wasn't your ordinary PBS fare. The essay by veteran editor and journalist James Fallows recounts a segment from the show as an introduction to his piece:

With Jennings in their midst the Northern soldiers set up an ambush that would let them gun down the Americans and Southerners.

What would Jennings do? Would he tell his cameramen to "Roll tape!" as the North Kosanese opened fire? What would go through his mind as he watched the North Kosanese prepare to fire?

Jennings sat silent for about fifteen seconds. "Well, I guess I wouldn't," he finally said. "I am going to tell you now what I am feeling, rather than the hypothesis I drew for myself. If I were with a North Kosanese unit that came upon Americans, I think that I personally would do what I could to warn the Americans."

...

Ogletree turned for reaction to Mike Wallace, who immediately replied. "I think some other reporters would have a different reaction," he said, obviously referring to himself. "They would regard it simply as another story they were there to cover." A moment later Wallace said, "I am astonished, really." He turned toward Jennings and began to lecture him: "You're a reporter. Granted you're an American" (at least for purposes of the fictional example; Jennings has actually retained Canadian citizenship). "I'm a little bit at a loss to understand why, because you're an American, you would not have covered that story."

...

Jennings backtracked fast. Wallace was right, he said: "I chickened out." Jennings said that he had "played the hypothetical very hard."He had lost sight of his journalistic duty to remain detached.

...

A few minutes later Ogletree turned to George M. Connell, a Marine colonel in full uniform. Jaw muscles flexing in anger, with stress on each word, Connell said, "I feel utter contempt."

Two days after this hypothetical episode, Connell said, Jennings or Wallace might be back with the American forces—and could be wounded by stray fire, as combat journalists often had been before. When that happens, he said, they are "just journalists." Yet they would expect American soldiers to run out under enemy fire and drag them back, rather than leaving them to bleed to death on the battlefield.

"I'll do it!" Connell said. "And that is what makes me so contemptuous of them. Marines will die going to get . . . a couple of journalists." The last words dripped disgust.

It just so happens that this was the very same episode I saw on Austin Access that day and it was every bit as riveting as Fallows' recounting suggested. Unlike reporters and politicians, Ethics in America doesn't shy away from controversy. Indeed, the reverse is true: the show plunges headlong into some of the most devisive issues of our era, which is pretty fantastic considering the ten hour-long panel discussions were taped nearly twenty years ago in 1987. And the hosts are brilliant, Socratically upping the ante and squirm level with each successive question they ask their experts. These are the kind of discussions we should all be having, but aren't.

Anyway, the point to this post is that all ten episodes are available for online streaming. You would be an absolute fool to not watch the entire run. There is a slightly annoying registration process to get access, but once they've got your info, you're in, and, believe me, it's well worth it.

Go educate yourself. Now!

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