By Joel Thurtell
I’m sitting here in my t-shirt wondering if this shred of cotton is somehow polluting everything I
Me and my Obama T
write because it has a photo of Barack Obama.
Is it possible that unseen biases are creeping into my head from the fabric I’m wearing?
Absurd.
But mainstream media owners don’t think it’s absurd. Somehow they’ve managed to drum into the brains of most working journalists that it is a cardinal sin for them to show a political preference. They are aided and abetted in this subversion of individual rights by the finest journalism schools in the nation.
Don’t believe me? Check out this statement by Jane Briggs-Bunting, head of Michigan State University’s journalism program, as quoted in the October 2, 2008 Detroit Free Press:
“Reporters, we’re on duty 24-7. I can have an opinion, and my opinion will be heard in the privacy of a voting booth. You can’t publicize your political views on a T-shirt you wear, a button you wear, or a campaign sign in your front lawn. You represent your news organization 24-7.â€
Wrong, Jane. Journalists have lives, they have a right to their opinions. It is a basic HUMAN right. Nothing in the Constitution says we give up those rights when we become journalists. Furthermore, employers — not just news organizations, but ALL employers — in Michigan are prohibited by law from keeping track of employees’ non-work activities, including politics.
But the bosses at many newspapers, radio and TV outlets agree with Professor Briggs-Bunting. Do they really believe that reporters’ thinking is somehow contaminated if they wear clothes with a political message?
They must. That would explain why the honchos at WWJ-AM canned veteran reporter Karen Dinkins for wearing an Obama t-shirt while she covered an Obama rally. Briggs-Bunting made her statement in response to a reporter’s question about the Dinkins firing.
Oh, I know, there’s the usual crap about the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Where’s the conflict?
Dinkins likes Obama, she wears an Obama t-shirt to cover a rally.
Wonder if Karen Dinkins’ Obama t-shirt looks like mine?
What if she HAD NOT worn the Obama t-shirt?
Would that erase her predisposition towards Obama?
Not a bit.
Oh, I know, she’s representing WWJ. Expressing her opinion compromises the station.
Hmmm. I guess it’s okay when WWJ endorses a partisan political candidate.
Somehow that doesn’t compromise the station, but Dinkins’ t-shirt does?
Chances are WWJ’s bosses are donating money to political causes.
That certainly turned out to be the case with Gannett, owner of the Detroit Free Press.
And it turns out to be the case with top editors at the Free Press, who maintained that employees other than themselves have no First Amendment rights while they were giving money to a political action committee.
(Note: Earlier this year, The Newspaper Guild went to bat for me when muckamucks at the Free Press threatened to fire me in June 2007 if I ever again did what I did in 2004 — donated $500 to Michigan Democrats. An arbitrator agreed with the Guild and me that the Free Press was wrong and banned the Free Press ban on non-work political activity. Guess the arbitrator didn’t check with the head of MSU’s J school. By the way, I retired from the Free Press late last year, so nobody can fire me for my Obama t-shirt, yard sign and bumper stickers.)
Why is it okay for the station or the newspaper to take an editorial stand, but not okay for a reporter to show support for a political cause?
Now, if I had TAKEN money from the Dems, I can see where they might be a problem. But I didn’t. I GAVE money — MY OWN money — to the Democrats. Why? Because I wanted to help them defeat the worst president in U.S. history. I think that’s more important than a bunch of half-assed, addle-pated, so-called journalistic principles.)
Maybe some McCain supporter complained that Dinkins showed bias in favor of Obama.
But again I ask, would NOT wearing the t-shirt remove the bias?
No. It would only hide it.
So let’s turn this equation around: Unlike the vast majority of American journalists, Karen Dinkins was honest. She disclosed her political leaning, while most of her colleagues hide theirs.
Would NOT wearing her Obama t-shirt have changed her reporting?
Not likely.
Let me make clear what I’m saying: By refusing to disclose political preferences, reporters and especially POLITICAL reporters are withholding from their listeners, viewers and readers information that might help those people interpret the writings or musings of the journalists. If a political reporter favors Obama or McCain, why not just say so? Let the reader or viewer or listener decide if the reporter is fair.
Who is dishonest, the journalists who disclose their leanings? Or the sanctimonious. self-appointed ethics cops who cast aspersions while hiding opinions that, by their own argument, might influence their reportage?
It’s hard to call a reporter who wears an Obama t-shirt a hypocrite.
What I’d like to see is a movement in journalism towards the policy of slate.com, where journalists are encouraged to reveal their voting preferences.
But it won’t happen as long as the heads of J schools pretend they have badges that entitle them to police the ranks of reporters.
I wonder. How long do you think a professor of journalism who expressed my point of view would last when department heads lay down an iron ban on journalists taking part in perfectly legal political activities?
What the J schools are dishing out to students who pay with their hard-earned tuition is nothing short of political indoctrination, a dogma that brainwashes them into thinking they can’t exercise their citizen’s right to be political.
Everyone has opinions, biases, beliefs. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t.
Nothing wrong with that.
So why not have all journalists put their political cards on the table?
Or on their lawns, cars or t-shirts.
Corporations that own news outlets and contribute heavily to J schools are not likely to agree, though, because for them hypocrisy has no shame.
For them, it’s all about control.
Oh, my God! I typed this ENTIRE column wearing my Obama t-shirt!
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
