Wednesday, March 29, 2006

By Eric Eyre
The Charleston Gazette
Published: 3/29/06

Excerpt:

When the Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce went looking for help to defray the costs of President Bush’s visit to West Virginia last week, the chamber turned to an unlikely sponsor: the company that owns the newspapers that would be covering the event.

Wheeling-based Ogden Newspapers Inc., which owns the Wheeling News-Register, The Intelligencer and three other daily newspapers that covered Bush’s speech, was the lead sponsor of the presidential visit. In an editorial Tuesday, the News-Register declared it was "delighted to accept the responsibility" and pitch in. ...

But Ogden’s decision to sponsor the Bush visit has prompted criticism and raised questions about Ogden’s coverage of the event.

...Bob Steele of the Poynter Institute media center in St. Petersburg, Fla., said Tuesday that Ogden’s decision to spend money on the presidential visit put pressure on its newspapers’ "journalistic independence."

"The newspaper coverage should be independent and professional," said Steele, an ethics scholar at the journalism school. "That position is compromised and complicated when a newspaper’s parent company is a financial stakeholder in the event and the issues surrounding the president’s visit."
More of this article...
Search Google News for more quotes by Bob Steele...

E-mail this item | Add Your Comments | QuickLink this item: A99143



Poynter on the Record Archive

View items published between:		and
	(MM/DD/YYYY)		(MM/DD/YYYY)

MAIN | Back to Top