There's something I've been trying to figure out for over a week now, and I've just been coming up dry. I think I'm pretty close to being a First Amendment absolutist, and while the New York Times' publication of a classified national secret (to our detriment, and to the benefit of our enemies) bothers me a lot, I recognize that the Times is within its First Amendment rights.

Of course, I'd have to concede that the Times would have had a First Amendment right to publish the details of the Normandy invasion before D-Day, too. I'd also hope that they'd have been too patriotic and too wise to do a crazy thing like that. Being a practical sort of person, I'd expect the government to have stopped the Times from running the piece -- even though that would have been illegal. (A huge war was on, and in war, well, inter arma silent leges.)

However, the Times had the same First Amendment right to run a story damaging to national security that I or anyone else has, and no more. "Freedom of the press" does not mean there's a variable percentage of freedom -- depending on the size (or circulation) of the particular journal. Freedom of the press does not confer any right to withhold information, regardless of how loudly someone claims it does. If someone came to me with inside information about an unsolved crime under investigation, and I disclosed it in this blog, a local district attorney might very well want to know who told me. Were I subpoenaed, I'd have to answer whether I wanted to or not. I see no theory deriving from my right to engage in reporting which would allow me to refuse to answer questions about what I knew. There might be valid public policy reasons to encourage sources to come forward to reporters which might give rise to a statutory privilege, but it has nothing to do with free speech.

Those are just some preliminary observations. Now, to my nagging question. I keep hearing references (by both sides) to something usually termed a "duty" of so-called "responsible journalism." Under this theory, say many people, the Times should not have published the story damaging to national security, because that would not have been responsible.

What is responsible journalism?

A couple of years ago, I provided readers access to beheading videos, because the media refused to show them on television. The reason given? Responsible journalism. It was because they might stir up people's passions, and get them all pissed off, and it might traumatize people.

Many mainstream media outlets refused to show pictures of the people who jumped from the Twin Towers on 9/11 in the following years. Again, responsible journalism -- this time because now it was "old news."

During the recent Muhammad cartoon flap, all but three newspapers in the United States refused to print the cartoons involved. Reason? Responsible journalism. It was because they might stir up people's passions, and get them all pissed off, and it might traumatize people.

OK, so what's different this time? What are the factors?

What am I missing in my search for a definition of responsible journalism?

I don't think there is a definition, because there are no standards of responsible journalism.

Not that the "responsible journalism" standard isn't invoked. It's often invoked -- by the "responsible journalists" themselves. Either after the fact, as a way of defending whatever it is they've done, or as a justification for what they haven't done.

It's also invoked in the hope of scolding bloggers, but logically, I just don't see how that might work. Considering the lack of any standard, and the moral bankruptcy of the phrase, accusing a blogger of "responsible journalism" might even be taken as an insult.

UPDATE (07/04/06): Might the phrase "responsible journalism" be what Arnold Kling calls a "trust cue"? If he is right, then stock phraseology (expressions I've called "code language" more times than I can remember) are not to be taken literally, nor dealt with logically, but must be seen as akin to membership in a religious group, or secret society.

Although empiricism has become a standard philosophy in the West, dogma persists. I believe that the main reason that non-verifiable ideas survive is that they serve as trust cues. People still need to demonstrate their commitment to membership in groups, and recitation of dogma is a low-cost method of doing so.

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An empirical argument attempts to convince you using logic and observation. A trust cue threatens you with loss of membership in a valuable group unless you take a given position.

I think Arnold Kling is right, and I suspect that "responsible journalism" is more of a recital of dogma than a real standard.

But are there implications for the First Amendment? I'd hate to think that "freedom of the press" and "freedom of speech" are becoming trust cues. (They are supposed to be innate human rights, not indicia of ownership.)

MORE: For what it's worth, I distrust "trust cues," (especially those that take the form of scolding political phraseology). When perfectly normal words -- like "reality" and "family" -- are misused to denote group membership and to scorn outsiders, I'm more inclined to think of them as "distrust cues." Sometimes I worry that the satirical name of this blog might be taken as the wrong kind of cue.

Sigh. Cueless can lead to cluelessness I guess.