Here is a letter from former Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Linda Picone to the PressThink blog on the Kerry cheering at the Unity conference:
As usual, various journalists are “appalled” at the idea that some of their colleagues offer a public demonstration of their beliefs or politics. It’s okay to have beliefs, they say, you just can’t let anyone KNOW you have them. Otherwise we’ll lose our credibility.
And I wonder, for the thousandth time, why anyone can support the idea that journalistic “credibility” rests on keeping things secret from the public. Wouldn’t we be all over any other institution that rationalized keeping information from the public that way?
Remember the city editor in Florida whose husband was running for city office? She was removed from her position–but only because her husband put a lawn sign up in their yard. Now one could make a pretty good argument that it’s hard for a city editor to function if she has to recuse herself from everything dealing with city politics. But that wasn’t why she was moved to another position. It was only the public nature of the lawn sign.
In my semi-perfect world of journalism, we’d have reporters identify their relevant associations and interests with stories. So we might note of the education reporter that “Mary Jones has three children who attend private school.” Or “Bud Budson home schools his children” or “Sam Thomas has no children and likes it that way.”
It might get unwieldy, but at least it would be honest. Would I read an article written by a clear Democrat-leaning reporter differently than one written by a clear Republican-leaning reporter? Probably. And shouldn’t I have the right to know which is which and make that decision myself?