WHAT WERE YOU THINKING - A SURVEY OF JOURNALISTS WHO WERE SUED FOR INVASION OF PRIVACY

Forty-two journalists who had been sued for invasion of privacy were a sked to reconstruct the thought processes that led to the publication (or broadcast) that brought the lawsuit. Findings indicate that the jo urnalists were generally unaware of impending legal trouble; that they perceived these situations as fundamentally ethical to a slightly gre ater degree than they perceived them as legal; and that legal reasonin g seems to take place in a ''total context'' of social factors. The st udy raises further questions about the relationship between ethical an d legal consciousness in journalists' everyday decision-making.