Fallout Begins For Journalistic Integrity

After MSNBC named 143 journalists who have donated to political causes and candidates, mainly liberal or left-leaning by a 9 to 1 margin, three of those journalists have already lost their contracts or jobs. The news organizations doing the firing and dismissals stress "guarding the newspaper's trust with readers." The Lincoln Journal Star, whose editor made the comments about trust in an editorial, also let it be known that one of its other employees was only reprimanded, but another, a cartoonist, was fired because of his very telling reaction: "Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass what the Lincoln Journal Star or their parent organization, Lee Enterprises, policies are on allowing newsroom staff to give to candidates and parties."

When one of the missions of the traditional media has been to expose hypocrisy and conflicts of interest, it is only right and fair to turn that scrutiny on themselves. Will a new witch hunt begin in America's newsrooms? A part of me would welcome that, but I also don't think that would be proper. What will the new guidelines be? Is it a conflict of interest if the science beat reporter donates money to a certain candidate? It could be, if the gift is in the context of the politician supporting funding lines of research. What about sports writers who like to insert political digs into their columns? Is there much of a conflict of interest when one is reporting on curveballs, but like to make jokes about the vice president, but that one donated to MoveOn.org? Obviously, each person's case has to be handled on an individual basis. But after the punitive process, new policies have to be enforced of no political gifts to candidates, PAC's, or the murky 527 groups. As has been noted in many places before, even if one can separate biases from reporting, it's the appearance of impropriety that matters, because that is what erodes readers' trust.