PressEthic

Lawrence Wright, esteemed journalist and author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Path to 9/11, opened this year's distinguished speaker series yesterday to an inquisitive crowd of NYU journalism students and faculty members. He explained the task of tackling his five year-long project as an answer to what he felt was his life's calling, and did so with the vigor and gusto of a recent graduate.

It was quite refreshing, as a student of the craft, to hear his struggles with methodology and the complete life change he had to endure while researching this work. Perhaps more intriguing, though, was listening to him describe the internal conflicts he encountered when he interviewed individuals affiliated with terrorist organizations and, thus, his own enemies.

He described the turmoil he felt at interviewing people whom he knew had "done terrible things," and asserted that this presented "moral quandaries" where the line between being a journalist and being a human was, at best, blurrily drawn. As a reporter, he explained, he was grateful to have such an incredible source. As a human, however, he was reminded who these people were in terms of his own citizenship in America. He conducted countless interviews with Jihadis who, he said, were compliant because like most people, they wanted to feel heard.

Had he, for example, had the opportunity to speak with Osama Bin-Laden, he discussed how beneficial it would have been for his project and, in contrast, how he would have felt compelled to "stab him with the bread knife." Afterall, this man was his enemy.

Where then, does a journalist draw the line between being human and being a reporter? Is one not doing his or herself a disservice by ignoring inevitable personal beliefs to get the story? If personal biases are unavoidable, then how can we not let them affect the process? Or, by becoming a journalist, is it necessary to abandon such feelings in order to provide the public with information and thus, become a dutiful public servant? These are questions without concrete answers, and journalists, no doubt, find themselves in these sorts of inevitable moral dilemmas on a regular basis. Perhaps, then, by acknowledging the existence of such conundrums, we will learn to better understand our place as servants, and in the process gain a better understanding of ourselves.