All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Remember the uproar a few weeks ago, when an MSNBC study identified 143 journalists who had contributed to political campaigns? My colleague discussed the study in this space, I took to the airwaves, and the debate even led a Washington Post reader to ask Howard Kurtz if movie reviewer Stephen Hunter – who donated some coin to the GOP – should have recused himself from a review of Michael Moore’s “Sicko.”

I don’t know if this has anything to do with the study and its repercussions in the news business, but one single page in yesterday’s Washington Post “Outlook” section stood out to me. Two different people contributing to the weekly opinion section shared their own personal disclosures, coincidentally both on page B5.

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Remember the uproar a few weeks ago, when an MSNBC study identified 143 journalists who had contributed to political campaigns? My colleague discussed the study in this space, I took to the airwaves, and the debate even led a Washington Post reader to ask Howard Kurtz if movie reviewer Stephen Hunter – who donated some coin to the GOP – should have recused himself from a review of Michael Moore’s “Sicko.”

I don’t know if this has anything to do with the study and its repercussions in the news business, but one single page in yesterday’s Washington Post “Outlook” section stood out to me. Two different people contributing to the weekly opinion section shared their own personal disclosures, coincidentally both on page B5.

Read full post…

Remember the uproar a few weeks ago, when an MSNBC study identified 143 journalists who had contributed to political campaigns? My colleague discussed the study in this space, I took to the airwaves, and the debate even led a Washington Post reader to ask Howard Kurtz if movie reviewer Stephen Hunter – who donated some coin to the GOP – should have recused himself from a review of Michael Moore’s “Sicko.”

I don’t know if this has anything to do with the study and its repercussions in the news business, but one single page in yesterday’s Washington Post “Outlook” section stood out to me. Two different people contributing to the weekly opinion section shared their own personal disclosures, coincidentally both on page B5.

Read full post…

Remember the uproar a few weeks ago, when an MSNBC study identified 143 journalists who had contributed to political campaigns? My colleague discussed the study in this space, I took to the airwaves, and the debate even led a Washington Post reader to ask Howard Kurtz if movie reviewer Stephen Hunter – who donated some coin to the GOP – should have recused himself from a review of Michael Moore’s “Sicko.”

I don’t know if this has anything to do with the study and its repercussions in the news business, but one single page in yesterday’s Washington Post “Outlook” section stood out to me. Two different people contributing to the weekly opinion section shared their own personal disclosures, coincidentally both on page B5.

Read full post…

William Powers believes that news organizations should post personal information about their journalists online.

He wants these questions answered: "Who are they? Where did they grow up? What did they study in school? Why did they become journalists? Did they ever work in politics or volunteer for a cause? If so, when and where?"

To which I ask: Why stop there?

What about these: What is their pin number? Who did they last sleep with? Do they have any embarrassing rashes? I demand that all journalists post at least one shirtless camera-phone pic of themselves on MySpace. The people have a right to know!

All sarcasm aside, there is some value in what Powers is calling for here – transparency is, after all, our bread and butter. I'm just troubled by the notion that journalists should be forced to reveal information like this about themselves.

For one, you have to wonder where it stops: Should someone writing on pork production have to disclose if they were ever a vegetarian? Should someone writing about gay marriage have to reveal their sexuality to all interested parties? One could argue that those issues are more relevant, when it comes to these stories, than where someone grew up, after all. But are we really sure that we want to endorse the idea that choosing a career in journalism means forfeiting privacy rights? And do we really care if the beat writer for the local ballclub ran for the school board?

And then there's the fact that the information revealed will inevitably be used unfairly. Let's say, when a reporter was in college, he joined the Young Republicans. Or, in his 20s, gave money to the Sierra Club. Does that really mean that ten years later he can't cover politics or the environment fairly? Yet you can bet that the screamers on different sides of the aisle will cite these supposed biases to challenge every word the reporter types or utters. I don't think reporters should be contributing to political causes related to the issues they cover. But there is something McCarthyesque about the idea that everything a reporter has done over the course of his life should be fodder for discrediting his work.

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Last night, the "Evening News" ran a "CBS News Exclusive" story about a secret meeting of senior Iraqi Ba'athists in Syria. The piece, from correspondent Elizabeth Palmer and producer Heather Abbott, featured an interview with Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Shara, who talked about Syria's potential role in ending violence in Iraq. (You can watch a six minute cut of the interview by clicking on the video box.)

In the interview, al-Shara comes across as poised and articulate. But there is a piece of information that viewers of both the "Evening News" piece and the full interview do not have: The interview they are seeing actually marks al-Shara's second sit-down with CBS News in just a few days. The first interview had not gone well, and, as a result, Syria had refused to allow CBS News to feed the tape of the interview from Damascus.

Palmer wrote about the situation in a Reporter's Notebook. Al-Shara, who was recovering from a cold, seemed off-balance for portions of the interview, and responded with an embarrassing "I don't know" to Palmer's question about who attended the secret meeting. "[A]s an old pro in the not-so-gentle art of American-style TV interviews," Palmer wrote, "he knew his clumsy 'I don’t know' would make him look ill-informed at best, and incompetent at worst."

So a Syrian fixer told CBS News that "[t]he vice president doesn’t want you to broadcast the interview." And since state owned Syrian television satellite facilities were the only option for transmitting the interview, CBS News had little say in the matter. As Palmer reports, the fixer had said that "Syrian TV will refuse to send the pictures…and of course you might not ever get another visa to return to this country." If CBS News had felt strongly that the tape get out of Syria, there was one option: To drive to Lebanon and feed the tape from there. But if that had been done, it could have poisoned the relationship between CBS News and Syria, and it would likely have meant that CBS News journalists would have had a harder time reporting from the country – if they could get back in at all.

The fixer suggested that Palmer re-interview al-Shara, and CBS News agreed. I asked Palmer if she was uncomfortable with the arrangement. "Under normal circumstances, we wouldn't have played ball, but because there was no breaking news story in the first interview, and because of the downside of defying the request, we did," she said. "You always have to be cognizant of the fact that they can take away your ability to cover a story at all."

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Yesterday on the "Evening News," anchor Katie Couric interviewed actor and activist Michael J. Fox. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, has been in the spotlight over an ad in which he lauds Missouri Democratic Senate candidate Claire McCaskill and criticizes McCaskill opponent Jim Talent over their positions on stem cell research. Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has suggested that Fox, whose body was rocking from side to side during the ad, was "either off his medication or acting" when he filmed the spot.

After her interview with Fox, Couric said the following: "By the way, in the spirit of full disclosure, I think it's important to mention that my dad has Parkinson's disease. He told me today it's okay to tell you that. And in the past, I've made contributions for Parkinson's research through Michael J. Fox's foundation.”

I asked Couric about the disclosure.

"The reason I donated to his foundation is because of my father. It was a combination of my admiration for Michael and my personal experience with my dad," she said. Couric said she had introduced people at events for Fox's foundation in the past, and she didn't want people to suggest she was trying to hide her connection to him.

Did her personal experience with Parkinson's influence the way that she conducted the interview or framed the story?

"I don't feel like it really reflected or influenced my approach," said Couric.

"I think I probably have even more sympathy for his situation, and I think I understand the science better than some other people," she said. "But I challenged him on questions people who support stem cell research would not necessarily want asked" – such as ethical "slippery slope" questions inherent in embryonic stem cell research and the notion that such research could conceivably be done exclusively in the private sector.

Couric also said she "wanted to be responsible to Rush Limbaugh's true feelings." She said many news outlets only excerpted the most incendiary clip of Limbaugh's comments, and that it was important to provide a full accounting of his views. During the interview with Fox, Couric read a comment that Limbaugh made directly to the "Evening News."

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Jeff Jarvis is issuing a challenge to bloggers – and more importantly to journalists everywhere. Jarvis has gotten his hands on a copy of a questionnaire that The New York Times requires its freelance writers to answer. It’s a list of disclosure questions and Jarvis thinks that “every journalist, especially staffers, should fill out the questionnaire and that they should be made public.”

Jarvis answers the questions himself and urges all bloggers to follow suit as a way to “pressure mainstream journalists into such open disclosure.” He is also soliciting suggestions for other questions to add to the list. First, the questions from The Times’ questionnaire, then some comments:

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