They Also Give Who Only Stand and Wait

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has an interesting piece about the donations to political campaigns made by journalists, sometimes in defiance of companies' policies on the matter.

Such donations raise difficult questions: Do employees of news organizations give up certain civic rights? Or, in an age when polls show growing public perceptions of media bias, should the appearance of siding with a candidate or party be avoided at all costs?

"A good rule of thumb," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, "is, if this were known publicly, would it cause the audience to have doubt about the credibility of this person's coverage?" That, he said, is often "a judgment call."

Whole thing here.

Comments

[Ron Hardin]

I think nobody cares who does not believe in journalist worship, which means nobody cares. I myself like framing effects, of which that was one. It's objectivity as an interest in apt description, sort of a poetic matter. Donations can't affect it.

So where is the journalist who writes a story on how Black Leaders make Blacks look like clowns? You could actually do such a story, contrasting the impression with actual Blacks you find right around you every day at work. That would be journalism. You couldn't say offhand whether it's Republican or Democratic. It isn't interested in either.

[Tom from Texas]

My own decade in newspapers convinced me that the majority of print journalists were the type of kid who got picked last for kickball during recess and who didn't get asked to the Prom. Such people carry grievances far longer than is healthy, and early on they learned to use words as their only weapon.

They are still trying to get even with the beautiful people years later, and thus are natural fodder for the Party of Victims, the Democrats.

The old-school hacks who mentored me were convinced that everybody in politics is an asshole and on the take, so none of them could be trusted (one actually refused to vote even in local school board elections). The Watergate Babies who suckled on All the President's Men actually came into the biz thinking they could "make a difference" - and they still do. They worship government (many secretly aspiring toward public sector "information officer" jobs) and naturally gravitate toward the party that gives their job any relevance.

[Shultz]

Listening to some people, you would think that getting rid of President Bush will be the greatest journalistic achievment since Tom Brokaw singlehandedly brought an end to the Vietnam War.

This is just another example of journalists grossly overestimating their credibility and influence. In terms of credibility, I suspect most Americans rank journalists just above used car salesmen.

But, given a choice, I would prefer biased reporters with some well reasoned arguments over the supposedly unbiased, poorly reasoned drivel I'm exposed to regularly.

P.S. None of the above applies to Norah O'Donnell. Everything Norah O'Donnell says is twice as interesting as everything everyone else says, well reasoned or not.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Oh, piss on all this. Let's just get it over with and let anybody give money to whoever they want, with the proviso that the candidates have to provide instanteous reporting (to the authorities and on the internet) of who they got their money from, with draconian legal sanctions for deceit.