I pretty much said yesterday that I wasn’t about to set my hair on fire over the issue of American journalists making donations to political parties. It’s a non-issue as far as I’m concerned, which puts me on the wrong side of most newspapers’ ethical policies.
There’s been a lot of blogosphere hyperventilation over the report on the donations, all of it easy enough to find and easy enough to ignore. I have to call BS on this little bit, however, from Alexander Heffner at CJR.
As a general principle, logic tells us hard news reporters shouldn’t donate to political candidates–if we want unvarnished, dispassionate stories, in which the public can trust.
Sorry, my logic doesn’t tell me that at all. In fact, mine holds that it is highly illogical to think that the act of not donating to a political candidate makes hard news reporters capable of producing unvarnished, dispassionate stories.
Look. You can restrict reports from doing all sorts of things — making donations, attending Dixie Chicks concerts — but none of that will magically make them any less personally political or opinionated. To think otherwise is a conceit.
What makes reporters of all stripes capable of producing those unvarnished, dispassionate stories is their ability to separate the personal from (for want of a better word) the professional, to be driven harder by the journalistic imperative than by personal feelings or beliefs.
The overemphasis on the “purity” of the reporter also tends to treat me, the reader, as if I were incapable of noticing bias, holes in stories, slanted coverage and all the other sins that those political-party-supporting folk are thought to be prone to. Puh-leeze.
Finally, consider this: the ethical constrains on journalists publicly associating themselves with causes (except for “officially approved” causes, of course) has been in place for at least half-a-century. Anyone notice if that’s had any effect on the perception of the press as staunchly neutral, unbiased, uninvolved? Thought not.
(Note: I realize this post puts me at odds with some of the best minds in the business. So be it.)
TAGS: ETHICS, JOURNALISM, POLITICS
