It's common practice for journalists not to contribute to political campaigns or engage in other activities that could jeopardize their credibility. But when it comes to non-journalists who contribute content to news organizations, should the same standards apply?
Susan Goldberg, editor of
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, says yes -- if the non-journalists are paid.
Last week,
The Plain Dealer suspended its political blog,
Wide Open, after learning that two of its contributors had donated money to political campaigns. The blog -- which was the idea of Jean Dubail, assistant managing editor/online -- will likely be re-introduced in a few weeks with new bloggers, under the agreement that they can support campaigns but not get paid, Goldberg said.
“Our mistake in looking at this in hindsight was in paying people. Just like when we hire a freelancer to review a play, we would never hire somebody who was an investor in the theater production," Goldberg said during a phone interview. "We can’t have people on our payroll who won’t play by our rules.”
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RELATED |
"Wide Open Takes a Holiday," and related comments.
"Liberal Bloggers Depart Plain Dealer," by Amy Garhan, E-Media Tidbits.
"Wide Open Blog Bumps up Against Journalistic Ethics,"
by Ted Diadiun, Plain Dealer.
"Cleveland's Burning River of Bloggers," by Jeff Jarvis.
"Civil Discourse Meet the Internet," by Clark Hoyt, The New York Times.
NJ Voices, The Star-Ledger's political blog.
"Beltway Confidential," The Houston Chronicle's political blog.
"The Swamp," The Chicago Tribune's political blog.
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The “rule” for journalists at
The Plain Dealer is that they can't cover topics that put them in a position of conflict. Goldberg said she didn't tell the Wide Open bloggers beforehand that they couldn't contribute to campaigns because "the issue didn't come up at all."
She did expect advocacy. "We in fact hired the bloggers because they were partisan," she said.
The Plain Dealer's dilemma mirrors a common challenge that news organizations face as they look for new ways to engage the public in political discourse
while trying to remain fair and balanced in their own coverage.
Ted Diadiun, reader representative for
The Plain Dealer, wrote a column explaining the Wide Open situation, saying he believes news organizations should have online forums where people from the community can express their biased views.
"We want to know what is on people's minds and give people the opportunity to express themselves. That's why we [created this blog] in the first place," Diadiun said. "The issue isn't blogs. It isn't politics. It's the payment part. I think everyone would agree that before we committed to pay these folks, we should have asked them some questions we failed to ask, so that we could have established a set of ethical guidelines we could all have been comfortable with."
Establishing written guidelines with contributors -- whether they are paid or not -- is critical, says Tom Regan, news blogger for National Public Radio and former executive director of the Online News Association. He has helped newsrooms deal with online ethical issues for the past 15 years.
"I think the issue here is transparency," he said. "I think to some degree it’s naive for any news organization to think they can invite people from outside the news organization to have this kind of a political blog and expect that these people would not have contributed to a political campaign."
In the spirit of transparency, Regan recommends that if a contributor has supported a particular campaign, this information should be noted on the blog, article, etc., so that readers have a clear understanding of the contributor's background. "I think the big problem is that many traditional media organizations are caught on the cusp of a whole new approach toward doing these things," said Regan. "I think many of them have not yet figured out how to make it work online."
For some, "making it work" means looking at online and print not as separate entities but as similar media that coexist.
"We’re in a hybrid age where we blur the distinction between
online and print," said Mike Tackett, Washington bureau chief for
The Chicago Tribune who oversees the paper's political blog,
The Swamp. "We have to
be nimble and we have to deliver stories to our readers on whatever
platform -- small, medium or large. The news that we can capture in the
moment we do capture in the moment, but we have to try to guard our
notion of originality."
The opinion part of The Swamp, Tackett said, comes from readers' comments and not from the
Tribune's 16 Washington bureau correspondents who write for it.
Things run a bit differently at
The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. The paper has a opinion site,
NJ Voices, with more than 50 non-paid contributors. Deborah Jerome-Cohen, deputy editorial page editor and editor of NJ Voices, recruited and interviewed members of the community to take part in the blog, which was modeled after
The Guardian's
comment is free blog.
"Our feeling about this is that in many cases we're interested in people's viewpoints because they
are partisans," said John Hassell,
The Star-Ledger deputy managing editor for online. We want that to be part of the debate. We had people from all over the political spectrum who are identified by their affiliations and we expect readers can make up their own minds about those folks who have various biases."
The contributors, who each have
a bio on the blog, post their own content without having to pass it by an editor first. When content is submitted, it appears under the "Latest Opinions" section at the top right-hand corner of the blog's homepage. Jerome-Cohen then decides what content to pull to the center rail of the blog. The blog has created a place where editors can post letters to the editor and where readers can respond to them in real time.
"Our thinking is that this opens up more avenues for the public to understand the issues at play in New Jersey. They're going to always get our news coverage -- that's never going away. They're going to always get the editorials ... the columns. Now what they also get is the voice of some of the opinion leaders and public figures that we have traditionally written about."
By not paying the bloggers, Hassell said it's understood that they can write about their political views and contribute to political campaigns without creating an ethical conundrum for
The Star-Ledger. The paper does not have written guidelines for the bloggers, but requires them -- and anyone else who submits comments or content for the site -- to consent to a
user agreement form.
The discussion isn't limited to politics.
One blogger, Carla Katz, used NJ Voices to share
her belief that a Star-Ledger reporter is "obsessed" with her. "I think a blog like NJ Voices works best if everyone perceives it as an open playing field where all points of view are represented," Hassell said. "This is an exercise in free speech. We're not looking to cut anybody off." He noted that there are rare instances in which a post or comment would be removed -- for example, if a blogger or someone commenting on a blog were to make a blatantly racist comment.
Hassell said it's transparency that keeps blogs like NJ Voices alive, fueling a forum where bloggers can be biased and do what journalists can't.
[What is your newsroom's policy on non-staffers contributing content? What about this policy has/hasn't worked?]
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