Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Juan Williams II: No, really, appearance of impartiality matters to your editor.

The upcoming "Rally to Restore Sanity" in DC this weekend is kind of a big deal to a lot of my Washingtonian friends. I don't fundamentally believe in political protests. It will be the first political march I've attended since college for a purpose other than keeping somebody else out of trouble. We've got a dude driving up from North Carolina just to attend.

Anyway, even reporters want to go. But when you're a reporter, that's just not that simple

NPR has asked its employees not to attend unless they are covering it.

The Washington Post says its staffers can attend, but not actively participate.

And yes, the local alternative paper has a policy mocking the bigger news outlets'policies, because that's how they roll.

But seriously, this "don't do overly political stuff that will cheese your sources off if you want to get good information out of them" is not a new thing just invented to persecute Juan Williams.

CC

3 comments:

Robin Edgar said...

Allow me to be somewhat tangential and paraphrase your words thusly CC -

Don't do overly political stuff that will cheese your actual or potential coreligionists off if you want to get good donations out of them. . .

Chalicechick said...

I don't like overly political stuff in church, but not because it isn't popular. Most congregations love overly political stuff.

I don't like it because it isn't what we're supposed to be doing in church and because I have a pretty deep belief in the separation of church and state. Appeasing the wealthier donors has nothing to do with it.

Further discussion of politics in church can be had at Robin's blog or next time I bring it up here. Any future commenters on this post are encouraged to write abotu journalism.

CC

Robin Edgar said...

Thanks for posting that somewhat tangential comment CC.

I am confident that I have made my point and don"t need to say any more here on *that* particular issue.

I amy chime in later about journalism though.