Spring Break
The Daily OrangeExpert panel addresses ethical dilemmas of free press
By Bethany Bump
Posted: 11/14/08, 12:46 AM EST Section: News
Judith Kaye got right to the point of Thursday night's "Sex, Money and the Press" panel before it even started. Looking out into the audience, she pointed to the students and asked, "What better groups to include in our discussion than a generation that will very soon fall likely to the error of today's journalists?"
Kaye, chief judge of New York State, served as the opening speaker for a panel of judges, lawyers and journalists at Thursday's event. They addressed ethical dilemmas that occur when the interests of the free press clash with the privacy rights of the accused to a full house. The event was held at 7:30 p.m. in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
The discourse followed a hypothetical format, in which moderator Albert Rosenblatt, a retired associate judge with the New York State Court of Appeals, would pose a hypothetical situation for the 11 panelists to address.
Rosenblatt began the panel by proposing that an imaginary man named Samuel Wilson, founder of a Fortune 500 company, became embroiled in a lawsuit involving a sexual harassment complaint from a former assistant. The situation then diverged into more complex ethical situations for the panelists to address what they would do in each situation.
The panel, free and open for the public, was set to end at 9 p.m. but continued until 9:40 p.m. The question-and-answer session with the audience got cut short after a prolonged debate between several of the panelists.
Katherine Hughes, who is taking a documentary class in television, radio and film and whose husband is an emeritus professor in education, was the only audience member the panelists had a chance to answer in the delayed session.
Hughes felt there was an important voice missing from the panel of judges, lawyers and journalists.
"If a person that is innocent of charges could have been up there, it would have added a dimension to the discussion we didn't get to see," she said.
Kaye, chief judge of New York State, served as the opening speaker for a panel of judges, lawyers and journalists at Thursday's event. They addressed ethical dilemmas that occur when the interests of the free press clash with the privacy rights of the accused to a full house. The event was held at 7:30 p.m. in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
The discourse followed a hypothetical format, in which moderator Albert Rosenblatt, a retired associate judge with the New York State Court of Appeals, would pose a hypothetical situation for the 11 panelists to address.
Rosenblatt began the panel by proposing that an imaginary man named Samuel Wilson, founder of a Fortune 500 company, became embroiled in a lawsuit involving a sexual harassment complaint from a former assistant. The situation then diverged into more complex ethical situations for the panelists to address what they would do in each situation.
The panel, free and open for the public, was set to end at 9 p.m. but continued until 9:40 p.m. The question-and-answer session with the audience got cut short after a prolonged debate between several of the panelists.
Katherine Hughes, who is taking a documentary class in television, radio and film and whose husband is an emeritus professor in education, was the only audience member the panelists had a chance to answer in the delayed session.
Hughes felt there was an important voice missing from the panel of judges, lawyers and journalists.
"If a person that is innocent of charges could have been up there, it would have added a dimension to the discussion we didn't get to see," she said.
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