If you were the editor, what would you do?

It was an intriguing if hypothetical series of questions -- dozens of them -- fired in rapid succession at a panel of top newspaper editors and journalism educators (plus one businessman-turned-politician).

Charles Ogletree Jr., a Harvard University law professor, was posing for the afternoon as “Sam Griffin,” a multimillionaire oilman eager to start his own world-class newspaper but uncertain about just how (or even whether) to proceed, in light of the recent scandals and controversies that have buffeted the press.

In an effort to ferret out the information and insights necessary to make his decision, Ogletree/Griffin peppered the distinguished panel with questions under the weighty rubric “The Story Behind the Story -- Newsroom Ethics in 2003: Where Do We Go From Here?” He asked whether the embedding of reporters with combat troops compromised the integrity of war reporting from Iraq. He asked about the timing and propriety of the Los Angeles Times’ pre-election stories on charges that Arnold Schwarzenegger had groped a number of women. He asked about the impact and import of scandals involving Jayson Blair, formerly of the New York Times, and Stephen Glass, formerly of the New Republic, journalists who lost their jobs after they were found to have written fiction in the guise of journalism. He asked about the role and significance of race in these and other scandals.

Each question had a number of subsets, hypotheticals built upon hypotheticals, with the panelists -- and Ogletree himself -- playing various roles as each case unfolded. These kinds of Socratic dialogues have been going on in journalism at least since the late Fred Friendly, former president of CBS News, began conducting them as the Columbia University Seminars on Media and Society in 1974, and I’ve always found them both great theater and reassuring about journalism. At one point in the most recent dialogue, a week ago Saturday, Ogletree took on the role of an embedded reporter, working for a newspaper whose top editors were -- “You,” he said, suddenly pointing to Leonard Downie, executive editor of the Washington Post, and Barney Calame, deputy managing editor of the Wall Street Journal.

“I’ve got a story,” Ogletree said. “I’ve been in the tanks and with the troops, and I’ve learned ... that our soldiers really aren’t prepared for war in the basic, fundamental rules of engagement.”

Ogletree asked Downie and Calame to discuss whether and why they would (or would not) publish this story.

Both quickly agreed they’d publish it (“It’s important ... to hold the military accountable for the training and preparation of their troops,” Downie said) but would be careful not to disclose the location or battle plans of the specific troops involved.

Ogletree then told Calame to “call” another panelist -- Richard Riordan, former mayor of Los Angeles and California’s newly appointed education secretary -- who would take on the role of a Pentagon general.

Calame mimed the call, told Gen. Riordan about the impending story and said his paper “would be happy to talk to anybody you want to put on the phone with us at Central Command so we can get their response.”

When Riordan agreed to arrange such an exchange and said, “We don’t want to hide anything,” Ogletree cracked, “You sound like a liberal Democrat.”

After the laughter subsided, another panelist, Geneva Overholser, suggested that a real Pentagon general would probably not be nearly so cooperative. (Of course, no real Pentagon general would consider publishing his own newspaper, as Riordan has repeatedly -- if unconvincingly -- said he intends to do.)

Overholser -- former editor of the Des Moines Register, now a journalism professor at the University of Missouri -- said a real general would ask just what the paper was going to report, and she said much “heated talk” about “national security” and the “sensitivity” of the subject matter would ensue.

Ogletree then shifted the hypothetical story to a reporter discovering that a contingent of U.S. troops reported to be 5,000 men strong actually had only 1,500 soldiers and was about to face a much stronger enemy force.

“Is that story going to run?” he asked panelist John Carroll, editor of the Los Angeles Times.

Carroll said he’d be “very cautious” about any story that involved specific troop movement.

Ogletree interrupted.

“If your idea of responsible journalism is to get the news to the public ... why shouldn’t the public know that we’re under-prepared for this particular battle? Who are you to ... keep that information away from the public?”

Carroll responded that in most situations, “we lean toward publishing, but if you think you might get a thousand people killed, I wouldn’t publish.”

Ogletree shifted again -- and again -- asking what the editors would do if the National Enquirer were about to break the same story

Then he asked Rick Rodriguez, executive editor of the Sacramento Bee, to assume the role of a television reporter who’d been offered an exclusive, live, unedited interview with Osama bin Laden at a location he could not disclose. Ogletree told Overholser she was now the TV station’s news director, and he told Downie to play Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as discussions about whether to conduct (and air) the interview were carried on.

And so it went, for 90 minutes.

Ownership is key

The immediate beneficiaries of this academic exercise were 40 high school and college journalism students who sat in the audience as part of a two-day workshop sponsored and hosted by The Times to support and encourage student journalists. But what I found most interesting in the program was neither the questioning by the students in the Q&A; session that followed Ogletree’s inquisition nor even the specific answers the panelists provided to Ogletree and the students.

I’ve participated in a few of these programs myself over the years -- though I was just a spectator at this one -- and either way, I’ve always come away with renewed respect for the determination of top journalists to serve the public interest, even (especially) in journalistically troubled times.

I know this sounds both personally naive and institutionally self-serving -- after all, I’ve been a journalist for 40 years, 35 of them with The Times -- and I’m aware of not just the blatant betrayals of the public interest by the likes of Blair and Glass but the more systemic, more damaging betrayals represented by what I’ve come to think of as the four horsemen of the journalistic apocalypse: superficiality, sensationalism, preoccupation with celebrity, and obsession with the bottom line.

The latter may be the most insidious of all, for as Downie said, “Ownership matters more than anything” -- owners willing to spend the money to produce a quality product and to stand behind the journalists who create that product.

I continue to believe -- and what I see and hear at these journalistic seminars continues to confirm -- that the best journalists at the best newspapers remain committed to serving their readers, and the public interest, to the best of their abilities.

When Ogletree asked Carroll to identify the “essential elements” that make a “good journalist,” Carroll replied, “Character. The person has to be honorable, both with the people he works with but especially ... toward the reader.... In reality, the journalist has only one boss, and that’s the reader.”

“What’s the most important thing that I should think on as a publisher?” Ogletree asked Rodriguez.

“The credibility of your paper,” he answered.

But isn’t it possible that people might trust the credibility of the paper and still dislike him if he told them unpleasant truths? Ogletree asked.

“You’re not publishing a newspaper to be liked,” Rodriguez shot back. “You’re publishing a newspaper to inform the public and to promote democracy.”

Ogletree concluded the program by asking the panelists if, given all they’d been through -- especially this year -- he should really start a newspaper.

Carroll responded with a question of his own:

“You’ve asked the question, ‘Is the newspaper business worthy of you and your millions?’ The other side of the question is, are you worthy of the responsibility [of owning a newspaper]? Do you have an interest in doing something that improves public discourse?”

Overholser said she hoped Ogletree would start his paper “because there is nothing that is more worthwhile or more fun.” But she warned him about the hostile political climate, about market pressures, about the need to spend money to hire and train a good and diverse staff.

“I hope you’ll do it without expecting the same return on investment as some of your fellow owners,” she said.

Calame was more succinct:

“Do it if you’re prepared to ask what serves, not what sells.”

David Shaw can be reached at david.shaw@latimes.com.