Marquette students, faculty and community members learnt Wednesday that alcoholism and ethics could coexist in the same sentence.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eric Newhouse lectured in Cudahy Hall Wednesday night about the importance of ethics in journalism, citing his 12-part series on the effects of alcohol as the event that changed both his personal and professional lives.

The articles, compiled in a book entitled "Alcohol: Cradle to Grave," won him the prestigious Pulitzer, but they also served a higher purpose. They marked a new period in his life, one where he realized, as a journalist, he has a responsibility to be the voice for the "unheard, unseen and underprivileged."

Newhouse, a Wisconsin native, earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and master's degrees from the University of Maryland and Columbia University in New York. He spent 18 years with the Associated Press before moving to Montana and working for the Great Falls Tribune. It was there Newhouse launched into writing his 12-part series — a project that started out as a monumental task and grew from there.

"Journalism is about being the sense of society — the eyes, the ears, the nose even — and what we tell the reading public is the way they will perceive the world," he said. "I realized I had an opportunity to tell stories that hadn't been told yet. I realized the people I was seeing had fallen through the cracks and no one knows how to help them."

In the series, Newhouse insisted on using names and photos in order to let readers know the stories he was telling were real, and that alcoholism is a real problem, even in small-town Montana.

Along the way, he broke a number of journalistic rules, he said, and decided to act ethically instead of rushing to print. For instance, he showed a section of an article to a woman he interviewed to get her approval. He believed he had a responsibility to tell these people's stories in a way that was still morally and ethically sound.

"I realized some material would've hurt these people if I had printed it, so I decided not to use it even though it was all on record," Newhouse said. "You always have to work from your heart with people."

Newhouse is currently working on another book, this one focusing on troubled teenagers.

"Newhouse is an extraordinary writer who covered a complex topic in a non-simple way," said College of Communication Dean Bill Elliott. "Alcohol is an illness that has a great effect on entire communities."

Newhouse is the third in a series of guest speakers at Marquette this year dealing with serious issues in media. Pulitzer Prize winners George Lardner and Carl Bernstein have each visited Marquette.

Elliott attributed the success of this speaker series to Will Burleigh— whose foundation finances the Media Ethics Program — for his support and love for journalism and Marquette.

"Marquette journalism has always put a high premium on ethical behavior," Burleigh said. "With our culture, it's an important topic to talk about. Ethical behavior should underlie everything we are doing and everything we should be doing."

Newhouse relished the chance to speak about ethics and the opportunity to defy the notion that journalism is a profession that de-emphasizes ethics.

"Most people think media and ethics form an oxymoron. Ethics are extremely important in my life, something that journalism doesn't tend to focus on," he said. "It's a privilege for me to come here and talk about issues that are so important to me."

This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on April 7 2005.