Correspondents Discuss Ethics At Kennedy School Forum

"We must fight for the truth in our society, whatever the cost," Mochtar Lubis, an Indonesian correspondent, said yesterday at a panel discussion of four journalists at the Kennedy School of Government.

The forum discussed the ethical and political problems journalists face as international correspondents.

Most panelists agreed that the truth and the public interest should be the primary considerations in deciding what to publish. But Tarzie Vittachi, a former editor of the Sri Lanka Observer and moderator of the forum, said he believed no reporting can be totally absent of value judgments because of differences in cultural backgrounds.

After the discussion, Vittachi called upon the journalists in the audience to cite instances when they would not publish a story.

Former correspondents of Time Magazine and the New York Times said their organizations did not publish their knowledge of the Bay of Pigs invasion even though they knew of the action beforehand.

The New York Times correspondent said his paper did not publish the information because of pressure from former President John F. Kennedy '40.

The panel of journalists consisted of Lubis, Vittachi, Jaqueline Grapin, financial editor of Le Monde, and Silviu Brucan, a Rumanian journalist.