Should the Press be Giving Money to Politicians?
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
The flap surrouding MSNBC's Keith Olbermann - and his donations to political candidates - got him sidelined from his cable show with no pay for a couple of days before being let back on the air.
Clearly, Olbermann is paid to have his opinions. However, he forgot a small detail regarding NBC News' policy against making such donations without prior approval. MSNBC and NBC News are part of NBC Universal.
Olbermann's "oops" raises the question about those in the media giving to candidates. What's right and where is the line?
A check of Huffington Post's "donation tracker" shows some interesting things. At the New York Times, many employees, including some reporters, who listed their employer as the New York Times, gave nearly $7,000 to political candidates from 2004 to 2010. Amazing how some people who make their living reporting facts and staying unbiased would be giving money to people they could potentially cover.
As far the state's largest newspaper is concerned - a check of the Providence Journal showed two people who listed the newspaper as their employer gave money to candidates. Thankfully those people were in "sales" and not news positions. We inquired about what the Pro-Jo's policy is for news employees donating to political canidiates and did not receive a response. Belo Corporation, which owns the Providence Journal, was also contacted in Dallas, TX and there has yet to be a response to our question.
WJAR POLICY
The NBC affiliate here in town, WJAR Channel 10, is owned by Media General based out of Richmond, VA. Lisa Churchville, President and General Manager of Channel 10 says while the station supports a person's voting privledge - the policy is quite clear to news employees. "All news personnel, anchors, reporters, producers, and writers need to refrain from partisian politics including endorsements and donations to candidates."
One could argue that news people certainly have no place giving money to candidates. It's just not a good idea and clearly Channel 10/Media General agrees. By the way, a check of Huffington Post's donation tracker does not show anyone employee or reporter from Channel 10 donated any monies to a candidate.
WPRI POLICY
GoLocalProv also contacted WPRI News Director Joe Abouzeid and asked the same question about station policy and news employees giving money to candidates - local or national. Abouzeid said, "I do not believe that it's in our written policies, but it's certainly not a good idea for journalists to be contributing financially to political campaigns." No reporters names came up from search of the Huffington Post site.
WLNE POLICY
Stephen Doerr, Vice President and General Manager of the ABC affiliate says the station's employee manual has several paragraphs related to political activity and he expects all his reporters to use "common sense" and never compromise objectivity. Doerr added, "A news employee of WLNE-TV / ABC6 may make private donations to local or national campaigns as long as those contributions are kept separate and distinct from their employment with the station." As with Channel's 10 & 12, the Huffington Post did not list any WLNE news employees as political donors.
Radio Talk Show hosts sit in a spot where they are not designated as news employees but are often breaking news or talking about the news of the day. Therefore a particular host could try to sway a voter to his or her canidates and not neccessiarly break the "sacred rule" of journalists that says under no circumstances should you show any kind of bias in your reporting or delivery of the news.
WHJJ'S HELEN GLOVER
Helen Glover, talk show host for WHJJ-radio, made it no secret that she supported John Robitaille for Governor. On air she moderated a debate between Republican Robitaille and Victor Moffitt. She donated money to Robitaille's campaign and it was pretty clear to her listeners that Robitaille was her choice for the state's top job.
After it was announed that MSNBC yakker Olbermann would be back on the air this week for his actions, GoLocalProv reached out to WHJJ Program Director Bill George to get his thoughts on talk hosts, politics and money. "Clear Channel does not have a policy that prohibits employees from making political contributions with their own money, on their own time. When it comes to talk show content, our hosts freely express their own opinions within FCC regulations and company policy," said Bill George. George went on to say that WHJJ believes in fairness to all the candidates and asks candidates who disagree with their hosts to appear on the air.
Editor's Note: GoLocalProv founders and editors have not donated to any political candidate since GoLocal's launch in April of this year. There is no stated policy. MINDSETTERS™ are all political voices - some elected officials, consultants and activists - many of them make political donations.
Olbermann's dust up with MSNBC is a story with a two to three day news cycle. It'll come and go. But hopefully, the larger issue here prevails and keeps reporters reminded in their mission - to just report the news - and not shape it based on their own political beliefs.
Jeff Derderian is a former television news reporter and anchor both in Providence and Boston. He is one of the founders of the Station Education Fund. He can be reached at [email protected]
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