Journalism has become a major battleground in a civil war of values that is raging throughout our country, affecting every institution -- business, law, medicine, even education: economic responsibility versus social responsibility; corporate values versus community values; personal profits versus the public good.

One of the most awesome changes of our time is the increase in the power and pervasiveness of the news media. That's why the question of standards is so important. Around the world there is growing public concern about the performance and behavior of the news media. The bottom line is that the public no longer trusts us. And for journalism, that is critical. Trust is our most important product.

Next year is the fiftieth anniversary of a report on American journalism that has become a defining expression of the ideals of a free press in a democracy. Titled "A Free and Responsible Press," it has become known as the Hutchins Commission Report, after its chairman, Robert Hutchins, who was then chancellor of the University of Chicago. In light of the vast changes in the communications industry, it is surprising how current the report remains and how persistent is the problem of a free, and more often than not, an unruly press.

Hutchins lays out his mission in the introduction: "This report deals with the responsibilities of the owners and managers of the press to their consciences and the common good for the formation of public opinion." Take note of the object of their examination: owners and managers!

It is the owners who not only have the responsibility but who possess the power to set the tone, state the rules, and define the boundaries of conduct. If we look back in time, we find that it was a few early owners who deserve the credit for establishing the public interest standards of the trade, the ethos and culture of responsible journalism. Some examples:

The founding statement by E.W. Scripps, who established the Scripps Howard chain, reads: "We shall tell no lies about persons or policies for love, malice or money."

C.L. Knight, founder of what today is the Knight Ridder chain, told his son, publisher and editor John S. Knight: "Better that you should set fire to your plant, and leave town by the light of it than to remain a human cash register editor."

And when Adolph Ochs took over ownership of The New York Times in 1896, he included these words in his statement of purpose: "It will be my earnest aim to give the news, all the news, in concise and attractive form, in language that is permissible in good society . . . To give it impartially, without fear or favor."

A few years ago in the midst of the newspaper recession, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, known as "Punch," chairman of The New York Times, was asked how the Times was able to cut its budget and still maintain the quality of the newspaper. Punch replied that the Times was fortunately still a family-controlled business, and the family had long ago decided they were not out to make "the last nickel."

In radio and television, too, we find owners who built responsible news organizations that, at least in the early days, attempted to live up to print journalism standards. Both David Sarnoff of NBC and William Paley of CBS respected news and public affairs and viewed it as an essential part of the broadcasting mix, a protected part of it, worth subsidizing with profits from entertainment.

What owner or manager in the American media today is publicly articulating the themes of high standards and high ideals? What owner is openly acknowledging that news is a highly profitable business with a legal franchise and protections that imply duties, obligations, and responsibilities?

None, that I can think of. Instead, broadcasters, cable operators, phone companies, and publishers have formed powerful trade associations to lobby for more freedom and less responsibility. And have won it.

Journalism has always existed in two different realities -- the reality of the economic marketplace; and the reality of a special institution protected by law in order to serve the public interest. Today the traditional balance between those two realities has clearly become destabilized. Economic reality has taken over.

But I would argue that there is strong evidence that the two are not mutually exclusive. We have many examples of profitability and quality today: The New York Times; The Washington Post; The Wall Street Journal; and smaller papers like the Raleigh News and Observer and The Charlotte Observer. There are hundreds of quality magazines and book publishers. And there is quality television news, some on CNN but also on the networks and PBS too.

Every business could give more serious consideration to quality as a strategic advantage; quality as a value, offering a competitive edge. As a matter of enlightened self-interest, the owners, including the public stockholders, should be encouraged to recognize the strategic wisdom of sometimes putting up the last nickel not only to cultivate dollars but to cultivate the public trust.

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