Keep your political slant out of the news

I suffered no withdrawal pangs when MSNBC suspended host Keith Olbermann over his contributions to political candidates. I have watched MSNBC (usually while flipping channels on election nights) just enough to know who he is. I also don't watch his counterpoints on the right — Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and that crowd on Fox News. A pox on all their houses, as far as I'm concerned.

But the issue of political involvement among journalists is one that I gave a lot of thought over a three-decade newspaper career. My journalistic training came during the 1960s and '70s, when the industry standard was an absolute ban on any and all forms of gifts, memberships and affiliations — anything that might affect one's objectivity. The restrictions could reach the ridiculous level. I was told a story about the young female reporter at a metro N.C. newspaper who had returned from an interview with an elderly man for a story about his gardening hobby. He had given her a rosebud from his garden, which she placed in a Coke bottle on her desk. An older colleague advised her to get rid of it immediately; accepting such a gift from a news sources is a firing offense! I worried about the ethics of accepting a one-mile ride from a county commissioner who was going my way. Some ethics policies were very specific. Columnist Art Buchwald told of being given a case of champagne when he was a correspondent in Paris. His newspaper's policy was that you could only accept gifts that can be consumed in one sitting (i.e., you could accept a free meal but not a stack of money). He rationalized that, if he had to, he could consume all that champagne in one sitting, so he accepted it. Membership in civic clubs or involvement in charities were forbidden by some ethics policies. Some journalism ethicists even questioned whether reporters and editors should belong to a church.

I drew a sharper line on political involvement. Access to politicians and political events are dependent upon a reputation for fairness, so a reporter doesn't want to show up for a Democratic rally with a GOP bumper sticker on his car. Nor do you want your name to appear on a list of partisan donors or have a political sign in your front yard. Therefore, I understand MSNBC's standard that led to Olbermann's suspension. You can claim that this policy restricts his free speech rights, but it is a sacrifice one makes for the job. Military officers sacrifice their right to criticize the president; judges sacrifice their right to practice law; professional athletes sacrifice their right to engage in foolishly dangerous activities that could jeopardize their ability to play their sport (and earn millions of dollars).

Here's a standard: What would Walter Cronkite do?