From Stephen Glass's concocted stories in The New Republic to the controversial inaugural issue of Brill's Content, the ethical lapses of the media have made headlines recently. Are journalistic standards under assault from new commercial pressures? After a background report, a panel addresses that and other questions.

MARGARET WARNER: For more on this we're joined by: Steve Sidlo, managing editor of the Dayton Daily News in Ohio, which won this year's Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting; Betty Baye, a columnist for the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky; Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, he was formerly a correspondent for Newsweek Magazine and for the Los Angeles Times; and Marvin Kalb, former chief diplomatic correspondent for CBS and NBC News. He's now director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, & Public Policy at Harvard University.

Marvin Kalb, what is your diagnosis of what's gone wrong here?

MARVIN KALB, Harvard University: Well, there's a new kind of journalism, I think. We see in Patricia Smith and Stephen Glass only the tips of the iceberg, and we focus on them in a way, because it's so obvious what they did was so glaringly wrong. But what about all of the journalists just deeper into that iceberg, layers of deception?

What about people who don't use sources correctly, who don't check out facts correctly? What about people driven by intense competition? What about the proliferation of all of these talk programs where the biggest two words are "I think," rather than what used to be, I guess, was called "I know?" And so there's a general lowering of journalistic standards, and I think the American people perceive this and are worried about it.

MARGARET WARNER: Steve Sidlo, would you agree, a lowering of journalistic standards?

STEVE SIDLO, Dayton Daily News: Not entirely. I think that news organizations have been doing bad journalism for a long time. I at various times-

MARGARET WARNER: Nothing new.

STEVE SIDLO: I don't think it's anything new. I think what is new and I think it's healthy is that there's a recognition that there is a perception among a lot of the people who consume the news, who read newspapers, and watch it on TV, and listen to it, read it on the Web, that it's-they don't like it, and that news organizations pay a price when they lose credibility with our customers. So I think news organizations are trying very hard to clean up their act when they have a problem. I think that's healthy. I think Cincinnati-

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with Marvin Kalb, though, that this-these recent cases aren't just an aberration, they're the tip of an iceberg?

STEVE SIDLO: I don't think it's the tip of an iceberg. I think stories have been mishandled for a long time. I think you're seeing news organizations being more willing to do public mea culpas and clean it up publicly, rather than privately.

MARGARET WARNER: Tom Rosenstiel, what's your diagnosis of what's happening here?

TOM ROSENSTIEL, Project for Excellence in Journalism: Well, I agree with Steve that, you know, there was never a golden moment. In the days of the Front Page there was a lot of stuff made up.

MARGARET WARNER: You're talking about the play and the movie.

TOM ROSENSTIEL: Right. In the 1920's, in the tabloids, traditions of the press. In many ways we've cleaned up our act a lot. We don't take freebies. We have ethics codes. And there are higher expectations on the part of the public today about press performance in part because we in journalism have claimed that we're a profession and that we should be granted special rights, and that we have the power to take down presidents and question the government over matters like Vietnam.

We're more intrusive press than we've ever been. There are, however, new commercial pressures on us. There are more and more outlets competing for fewer and fewer readers and viewers. And this is putting pressure on everybody to go for the new voice, to have something that stands out, to be provocative, to push the envelope.

And against those kinds of pressures news organizations can be vulnerable to the sort of the Stephen Glass phenomena in which a 25-year-old with no training is given enormous leeway, making up anecdotes which are pretty clearly faked, raising suspicions for a long time, and instead of getting the whistle blown on him gets contracts from four of the most prominent publications in the country. So we're a little of both at the same time.

MARGARET WARNER: Betty Baye, do you agree with Tom Rosenstiel that there are these new pressures on columnists like yourself and on reporters to have presence, to create a buzz, to create a stir?

BETTY BAYE, Courier-Journal: I think that that's really true, and Tom was getting to where I'm at at the end-at the end of what he was saying-which is that it's hard to know who's a journalist now and who is, in fact, representing some organization or some interest. A lot of the people who are in the media now have moved straight from government into being analysts, into being journalists, so the public is probably confused about who's who.

Who's a journalist, who's trained to be a journalist, and who simply came out of somebody's political camp? And now is writing a column as if it's something objective, when actually they're extensions of the White House or the administrations that they previously worked for.

MARGARET WARNER: Steve Sidlo, you deal with these reporters every day. When-I'm sure you've gotten stories sent to you that you question or you question parts of it-when there are unfair or inaccurate stories, what's the failure really at the reporting level? I mean, is it because the reporter's feeling the pressures Tom Rosenstiel talked about, or does he have a bias, as Betty Baye was saying, or what is it exactly when you actually deal one to one with a reporter?

STEVE SIDLO: Well, when you have a bad story published, it's not just the reporter's fault; it's the fault of the institution ultimately and the process that allowed that story to get in the paper.

A good newspaper or any kind of good news organization has, I believe, ought to have a system that challenges stories before they're published or broadcast. And if you don't have that system, bad things can slip in the paper, errors and biases, and just outright inaccurate information.

MARGARET WARNER: Marvin Kalb, I want to get to the editor's responsibility, but first to the reporter's, because I don't think most viewers understand how our craft works. You were a working reporter for years. What is it when-what occurs when reporters go over the edge?

MARVIN KALB: I think that a reporter, a good reporter, probably knows when he or she is going over the edge. But in my time there was, of course, intense competition then too. But I think-and I disagree very respectfully with a number of my colleagues who think that there is nothing new going on here now-I think that there are a number of new things.

One of the new things has to do with the new technology that is driving the industry, has to do with the new economics these mega-corporations now owning news organizations and demanding essentially not a public service from them but a large profit from them. I think there is a new journalistic ethos that is at work as well.

Journalists know when they're doing the right thing, but they are under the most ferocious kind of pressures now to be first, to be sensational, and it's the responsibility, it seems to me, of the editor, of the publisher, of the executive producer, to say this far and no further unless you have absolute proof that you can support this story.

MARGARET WARNER: Betty Baye, do you agree those pressures exist on working reporters and columnists?

BETTY BAYE: Yes, I think they do exist in terms of working faster, trying to compete with 24 hour news programs. I mean, as soon as it's said, it's all over the world. Lots of times you don't have enough time to check it out. But at the same time I think there's something else that's going on. I think that even when I came in he business almost 20 years ago, there seemed to be more old timers around to give guidance, to help a young reporter, to help you on the small issues, that would help you to be a better journalist.

And increasingly, everyone in the newsroom is the same age. The editor tends to be as young as you are and maybe as inexperienced, so we also have the fact that a lot of the more experienced people have been either moved out of the business in the interests of youth or they've been moved out of the business to pursue other things that are more lucrative than what they were doing in the newsroom.

And I think those of us who are still in the news room have lost the benefit of that great wisdom and counsel that some older reporters used to get from people who had been around the block a time or two.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree that's part of the problem?

TOM ROSENSTIEL: Yes. There is particularly in television, there is a real new reason for being, which is making a profit. And today in network television in particular the news divisions are being asked to subsidize sports contracts, so you have a situation for instance-

MARGARET WARNER: You mean, as opposed to the news divisions being a lost leader, not even having to make a profit?

TOM ROSENSTIEL: Right, and there to establish the credibility of the network. Now when you get a situation like that, as in the Time/CNN case, there's every reason to believe that they needed a big, big story for their inaugural program to get into the prime time magazine business to compete with the other networks.

If that program doesn't make money and doesn't generate high ratings, it'll be off the air, and the people associated with it will have a black mark. Well, that's very different than the reason for being that we traditionally had in our minds, which was to get the story right, to pursue a kind of truth even in the days of partisan journalism. Their political liberty and debate was the fundamental bedrock purpose of the news organization. It may have been ideological, but it wasn't there to generate a profit.

And today increasingly, we are seeing a "market first" orientation to journalism. And that's a big pressure on people that come up with stories that are really going to attract attention.

MARGARET WARNER: Steve Sidlo, how does a good editor withstand those pressures and add to that the pressures also that Marvin Kalb talked about and Betty Baye as well, the pressure of the 24 hour news channels, the Internet, the constant competition?

STEVE SIDLO: Well, it's hard to do, frankly, but you go back and try to focus on your core values in your organization and communicate to your staff members that you value accuracy and integrity, and if you send them that message every day, they'll get it.

And they'll follow your lead. I think that partly what we have here is a clash of standards. Traditional newsroom standards would make it harder for a reporter to make up quotes, for example. But on the Web you've got no standards at all, no tradition, like you have in a newspaper or in a television news room, and so you've got people who feel very free to put almost anything, publish it on the Web, kind of on a whim.

And newspapers and television stations to a degree are competing with those kinds of news disseminators. So that does put pressure on it, so you can avoid that if you recognize what your core values are and share them with your staff, and make sure you stick with them.

MARGARET WARNER: Betty Baye, how do you-how would you like to see your editors withstand those pressures?

BETTY BAYE: Well, I think that I benefit, because beside being a columnist, I'm also an editorial writer, which means, which gets to another issue that sort of I think contributes to it, and that is that the technology is allowing a lot of people to work at home, so that working in isolation, where I come into the office, I meet with the editorial board, I get a chance to test out not just my editorials but my ideas for my columns with my colleagues.

When you're working by yourself, sometimes you don't have the benefit of just bumping up against other people and what they think about what you're saying or what you're doing or giving you another source or another way to go. And apparently the future of this business is that more people are going to be working at home. And I think when part of what journalism is that being out among the people-and if journalists become isolated, we become like a novelist. We can sit in our lonely rooms and just create anything we want to.

MARGARET WARNER: Interesting. Marvin Kalb, what do you think, if there is a solution here, one, do you think there's a solution, and, if so, how? I mean, the editors who actually have to approve stories before they go on the air or get in print are the last gate. How can they resist all these pressures?

MARVIN KALB: I think it's very, very difficult to resist all of these pressures. I'm delighted that I don't have that job frankly. Steve spoke before about core values, and sticking to them. But every single time, Margaret, that we have come upon another example of gross excess, whether it was Princess Diana, Vercace, Monica right now, the press complains about what it's doing, it analyzes what it's doing, it pats itself on the back or spanks itself, but at the same time continues to go down the path, rather than up to some new height of accomplishment.

I don't know what it should do right now, except what Steve says, go back to core values. And I simply don't see that happening.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you see it happening?

TOM ROSENSTIEL: There's a strange paradox going on. As we sort of drift towards info-tainment and punditry, we're seeing our audience structurally decline, particularly in television, a massive hemorrhaging of viewers, so this path isn't working. I think the solution is to recognize that long-term we're not in the information business.

Information is increasingly available. We're in the credibility business, and that in a sense you can-you can make-you can draw a crowd by going down to the corner and taking your clothes off, but over five years you can probably attract more people by going down to that corner and playing the violin. And right at the moment we're in the naked business and not the violin business.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you all four very much.