STEVEN BRILL of the American Lawyer recently offered a "New Code for Journalists." Some of it is redundant and too wordy, but here in his own words or closely paraphrased is the essence:
A journalist should never lie or mislead a reader in any way, either by commission or omission.
A journalist should always use language and information that is as exact as possible and as first-hand as possible and never make it seem more exact or first-hand than it is.
A journalist should make sure that no one who is the subject of a story is surprised to have been written about in the way they were written about when the story is published or broadcast.
Journalists and journalistic organizations should always avoid conflicts or appearances of conflicts of interest when possible and disclose all conflicts or potential conflicts that are not avoidable and not totally obvious.
Journalists should always give credit to the work of other journalists whose reporting they are using.
Under the banner of "the public's right to know," journalists should not fail to balance the importance of what they want to report with the negative consequences of reporting it.
It is not inappropriate for journalists to try to be interesting and even entertaining. Nonetheless, their first priority is to give people information that they think is important for them to know.
Journalists and journalism organizations should make themselves as accountable as those they seek to cover.
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OOO-LA-LA, is Towson ready for this? A French lingerie shop, "Pour Elle & Lui," opens in Towson Town Center Monday.
For those who don't speak French, we'll translate: For Her and Him. That's right, a shop dedicated to women's and men's lingerie. Not only that, the store has a dressing room that accommodates two.
As we remember, Towsonites got uptight a couple years back because another merchant displayed ladies' underwear in a store window on York Road.
Allan Khoundadze and his son, Phillip C. Martien, launched the ++ business after their wives complained that they had to go all the way to France to find proper lingerie.
We wish the new merchants at Towson Town Center the best, but perhaps the Baltimore County rescue squad's coronary response team should be alerted just the same.
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EMBATTLED Washington officials develop all sorts of survival skills.
One who is seen constantly in danger of losing his job is Secretary of State Warren Christopher. It was fitting, therefore, that a recent listing of events in the capital said he would present "remarks at event re: anti-personnel land mines."