Russell Frank: Psst. Wanna Free iPhone?

You’re in an electronics store. The security cameras are on the fritz and the sales clerks have slipped out for a smoke. You see that iPhone? I guarantee that if you take it, you will not get caught.

Do you take it?

I ran this scenario past my journalism ethics class the other day. More than 40 said they’d pass. Three said they’d grab it. One of them was eager to explain why.

“I’m from Washington,” she began, “and times are hard down there.” If people have the opportunity to get what they need without paying for it, she said, they’re going to do it.

And besides, chimed in another member of the minority of three, neither Apple nor the retailer would miss it.

The rest of the class took exception to the Washingtonian’s use of the word “need.” Nobody needs an iPhone the way a hungry man needs a loaf of bread and a jug of milk. I recalled discussions of “looting” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Taking advantage of the chaos to swipe a flat-screen TV was clearly looting. But taking groceries?

The Washingtonian, in turn, denounced those who said they wouldn’t steal the iPhone as liars. So I asked the goody-goodies: Why wouldn’t they steal the iPhone?

One said she’d feel guilty. Another said, because it’s wrong. This, of course, is what I had been looking for: the idea that we do the right thing not out of fear of punishment but because it is the right thing.

But it’s worth thinking about what makes the right thing the right thing. If we go back to the dawn of humanity, we see our ancestors figuring out that life is safer, cushier and more tummy-filling when they cooperate than when they compete. But for cooperation to occur, people need to be able to trust each other. If you have to stay up all night guarding your valuables for fear that your neighbor is going to steal you blind, you’re better off going it alone. So we strike a bargain: You don’t steal my stuff and I won’t steal yours.

That sounds like a peachy arrangement in a society where everybody more or less has the same stuff. But my Washingtonian – I couldn’t have picked a better lightning rod for class discussion if I had planted her myself – suggested that she was justified in pocketing that iPhone because of gross systemic inequalities and injustices. Why shouldn’t people who have been cheated, lied to and stolen from their whole lives get back a little of their own?

Thus, in a stratified society, does corruption at the top breed crime at the bottom. I thought of Mia Farrow’s character in “Broadway Danny Rose,” my favorite Woody Allen movie.

“You see what you want, go for it,” she says. “Don’t pay any attention to anybody else. And do it to the other guy first because if you don’t, he’ll do it to you.”

“This is a philosophy of life?” says Danny.

The problems with this philosophy of life emerge when we look beyond immediate self-interest to long-term consequences. Yes, if I get away with taking the iPhone I clearly benefit — but only in the short term. Long term, I increase my own vulnerability to theft (the more people get away with crime, the more criminality will occur) while decreasing the sum-total of trust within the social system.

In the iPhone world, increased crime/decreased trust leads to tighter security and higher prices. Thus I have made my own life more difficult. Thus in the big-picture sense, we are all stakeholders in a moral order. You say you want a revolution? I say you need to organize and agitate for reform first. 

What does any of this have to do with journalism ethics? The New York Times reported this week that news organizations canceled millions of dollars of advertising in order to bring their audiences more coverage of Hurricane Irene. Such decisions run counter to the widespread belief that news organizations, as businesses, always put profit before public service.

A cynic would say the news media hyped Irene to increase their audiences. They may have lost advertising revenue in the short run but attracting more viewers or readers will bring in more ad revenue in the long run.

Which view is right? Both, I say. Providing wall-to-wall coverage increases your audience only if you’re giving them the information they want. Yes, profit making and public service sometimes conflict in the journalism world. But sometimes, they converge. Giving people the information they need during an emergency is both good journalism and good business. True, sex sells, gossip sells, violence sells, weirdness sells. But here’s what else sells: reliable information.

Whether we’re talking about petty larceny or professional journalism, doing the right thing is ultimately in our self-interest.