By Joel Thurtell
It was subtle.
It was understated in a shifty way.
But The New York Times managed to tell its readers that journalists who give money to political causes are bad people without mentioning that the Times has a bias: The nnewspaper’s ethical guidelines ban what the Times authors prefer to consider journalistic “activism.”
But they didn’t tell you that.
The closest the Times came to acknowledging that it has a pony in this race occurred when writers Brian Stelter and Bill Carter stated that “most journalistic outlets discourage or directly prohibit campaign contributions by employees.”
That’s a prissy way of saying most news organizations abridge the rights of their employees by forbidding them to participate fully in the process Americans have come to call “democracy.”
Somehow, the Times was able to publish its long article without mentioning that in the single instance when a journalist challenged a “journalistic outlet” for disciplining him for donating money to a political campaign, an arbitrator chastised the “journalistic outlet” and ordered it to stop interfering in employees’ banned its political behavior.
Okay, the employee who was censored was me, and the “outlet” was my former employer, the Detroit Free Press.
The Times was trying to report on MSNBC’s suspension of political commentator Keith Olbermann for donating money to Democratic campaigns in last Tuesday’s election.
The great newspaper disguised its own stance: Times staffers are expressly forbidden to take part in politics.
Through some warped concept of “objectivity,” this fact never emerges from the Times report.
The Times’ statement that “most journalistic outlets” ban political participation by their employees requires qualification.
It would have been more accurate to say that while most print newspapers have such restrictive policies, “journalistic outlets” exist where journalists’ right as U.S. citizens to take part in the political process is recognized.
At Fox News, for instance, and the New Yorker, and Time Magazine, and Slate, staffers’ right to make political donations is not mess with.
Isn’t it interesting to learn from the Times that MSNBC’s decision to discipline Olbermann was based more on marketing considerations than on the defense of ethical principles?
It is an odd contrast. Conservative Fox News actually encourages political participation by staffers, while liberal MSNBC has a big problem with it in part, according to the Times, because MSNBC wants to distinguish itself in viewers’ minds from its arch-rival, Fox News.
Once again, the “journalistic outlets” show that it’s about marketing, not ethics.
That is what happened in The Newspaper Guild case, in which the union defended me when managers at the Detroit Free Press tried to fire me in 2007 for donating $500 to the Michigan Democratic Party in 2004. When pushed during his deposition, a top Free Press editor defended the paper’s ban on political activity in marketing terms.
My employer was not above invoking principle when it saw opportunity. When the Guild first grieved the Free Press action, the newspaper responded by telling us that as employees of a private organization, Freepsters have no First Amendment rights.
Unfortunately for the newspaper, its attorney failed to understand that the union wasn’t arguing my case on constitutional grounds. Rather, the Guild pointed out that there is such a thing as a contract between Guild members and the newspaper. That contract does not regulate political behavior of Free Press staffers.
An arbitrator agreed with the union and ordered the Free Press to lift its ban on political expression by Free Press employees.
[For a thorough discussion of this case, see my new book, Shoestring Reporter
Given the widespread use of bans on journalists’ fundamental right to take part in the political process, it’s interesting to see how little the media covered the Guild’s signal victory.
Times writers Stelter and Carter along with their editors might want to study my extensive discussion of this issue as the case unfolded three years ago. It would be nice to read a complete and fair discussion of this issue in the Times. [ Shoestring Reporter
Meanwhile, when next the Times weighs in on this important journalistic issue, I hope the newspaper shows some courtesy to its readers by acknowledging that it is one of the “journalistic outlets” that bans political participation by its employees.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
