Terence Smith spoke about decisions the media must make that impact the lives of others at the seventh annual Rosin Smith Sammons Lecture in Media Ethics on Thursday evening.

“What I’m talking about here tonight is the ethical and professional considerations when faced with very high level appeals to patriotism and national security,” said Smith, who spoke in Caruth Auditorium

The Rosine Smith Sammons Lecture is put on by the Division of Journalism in the Meadows School of the Arts and was created by SMU alumna Rosine Smith Sammons to discuss media ethics.

Smith focused on ethical dilemmas, saying that there are two kinds. The first are those that are transparent. The second category – dilemmas that aren’t clear cut – is more problematic because there’s no one, “right” answer.

Smith cited three examples throughout the lecture, asking the audience to participate in an exercise with him. At the end of each of his examples, he asked the audience members to raise their hands to indicate if they were for or against the actions taken by the newspapers.

The first example came from an article in the New York Times that broke the story of President George W. Bush approval of the National Security Agency tapping phone lines without a court order. Smith said that Bush himself asked the Times publisher Bill Keller to not publish. The New York Times went ahead with the story. About half the audience at the lecture agreed that the Times did the right thing.

The next example came from a Washington Post article that discussed terrorist combatants being held in camps in Eastern European countries. The article explained that in these countries prisoners could be subjected to torture and other means of coercion that were not allowed in the U.S. Smith said Bush again asked the paper not to publish and they did.

The final example Smith used was from the New York Times story on the government’s tracking of banking records of U.S. citizens. Former Secretary of the Treasury John Snow asked the paper not to publish, but they ran it. Once again, about half the audience agreed.

“The point in the exercise is to not settle who was right or wrong,” said Smith.

“Editors are being asked to keep a balance between security and what the public has a need to know,” he said.

There were some lighter moments during the lecture when Smith wished greetings from “Hollywood on the Potomac,” claiming that with the mid-term elections coming up Washington has become an entertainment capitol.

Smith has been a correspondent and senior producer for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer since 1998. He previously worked for CBS News and the New York Times.

“I think the Sammons Lecture is an invaluable tool because it lets students hear media icons give real-world experiences and shows them the maturity and wisdom required to be a journalist,” said Brooks Powell, a junior at SMU who attended the lecture.

“Unfortunately media ethics has become an issue in the news each week. The division of journalism [at SMU] is dedicated to teaching ethics,” said SMU Journalism Chair Tony Pederson.