Please stop perpetuating this idea that we didn’t try too hard to understand where people were coming from.

I don’t know what happened between Jean and any editor at the PD, but I know what went on between Jean and the four bloggers.

Your perception belongs to you. But it does not reflect the experience of the people involved, meaning, at a minimum, myself. I’ll left Jeff, Tom and Dave describe it for themselves.

You are correct to note that I’m operating from “the other set of ethics,” at least in so far as it pertains to disclosure. From the days I worked at a newspaper in West Virginia in the late 1980s/early 1990s, I have always believed newspapers would be more valuable if political reporters (and editors) had to disclose their leanings. I don’t believe reporters should have to say for whom they vote — anonymous balloting is as American as a free press (for most of our history anyway) — but they should have to say what their registration is and what views they hold about issues. And they probably shouldn’t be allowed to cover the party they support. The best journalists are skeptics — trust but verify — and it’s hard to be skeptical of people whose views you share.

On the issue of contributions, I lean toward the journalistic ethic that people who cover politics should not be allowed to contribute to candidates. The appearance of impropriety is strong and the potential for corrupted copy is too great, disclosure or not.

Where would you draw the line? One-hundred dollars is OK but not the $4,000 a rich blogger could give per candidate, per election (and yes, it’s possible to be a rich blogger because most political bloggers work in professions other than journalism)? What about a blogger who paid a candidate $4,000, and funneled another $12,000 through his wife and two kids? It’s all perfectly legal, according to federal election law, and lots of rich people do it. But it could well ruin the reputation of the newspaper for whom that blogger wrote.

That said, I’m not firmly convicted one way or the other right now about whether bloggers who write for newspapers should have to adhere to the journalistic standard against political donations. I’m personally not comfortable with it and probably wouldn’t let bloggers do it at a publication I ran — but I would make that clear up front and I might be able to be persuaded otherwise. I want to see how this media convergence plays out — and how well Cleveland-like experiments work in other places (if the curmudgeons don’t take shelter) — before taking a firm stance.

If corruped copy isn’t the end result, and if readers become comfortable with the idea so that the appearance of a conflict fades, then I’d happily say it’s time to rethink that particular ethical standard and update it for our modern media age.

Danny

maybe save ya the trouble of the lookup