Question #11
On his own time, a part-time copy editor for one of the Twin Cities' metro newspapers rode a bus to Washington, D.C., with fellow parishioners from a local church to participate in a Sept. 24 peace demonstration. The newspaper suspended him for three days without pay in October.
The copy editor, who has worked for the newspaper since 2000, did not tell management of the plans to attend the rally on his free time. Management told the copy editor his actions jeopardized the paper’s credibility and posed a conflict of interest if he edited Iraq war stories. Given our recent discussions about ethics and credibility, what are your thoughts about this? You can look at this article in City Pages for more information.
posted by Kate at 8:55 PM
1 Comments:
There's a fine line between remaining objective and being humdrum. Sometimes, I think, in our super-sanitized society (and especially in journalism) we lean toward the bland. In an effort not to step on anyone's toes or appear biased, newspapers are bending over backwards and churning out what they hope will be acceptable to all. Thank goodness for the OP/EDs. Because really, the events that make up our lives and the news are charged with emotion and characters and, most of all, personal interest. The latter should be a strong suit of any newspaper staff. A newsroom should be filled with people who are interested in and linked to as many causes and campaigns as possible. At the same time, they must keep their work truly objective. This is no easy challenge, but it's doable.
It's strange, though. On one hand, newspapers seem to be afraid of diverse viewpoints - or letting their staff espouse them, anyway. On the other hand, newspapers are fighting to the death to make sure their staff members are diverse. It's as if they want to make sure it looks like the staff represents a barrage of interests -but not allow them to actually participate in or vocalize about those interests. If newspapers squash staff members' rights to attend rallies, what's next? Will staff members be asked not to attend their church or synagogue or mosque? Will they not be allowed to volunteer with certain organizations?
However, if the issue is simply one of notification, newspapers should make their policies clear and stick by them.
11:51 AM, December 12, 2005
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