Philosophy as news: Bioethics, journalism and public policy

News media accounts of issues in bioethics gain significance to the extent that the media influence public policy and inform personal decision making. The increasingly frequent appearance of bioethics in the news thus imposes responsibilities on journalists and their sources. These responsibilities are identified and discussed, as is (i) the concept of "newsworthiness" as applied to bioethics, (ii) the variable quality of bioethics reportage and (iii) journalists' reliance on ethicists to pass judgment. Because of the p otential social and other benefits of high quality reporting on ethical iss ues, it is argued that journalists and their bioethics sources should explo re and accommodate more productive relationships. An optimal journalism-eth ics relationship will be one characterized by "para-ethics," in which journ alistic constraints are noted but also in which issues and arguments are pr esented without oversimplification and credible disagreement is given appro priate attention.