Soccer Dad

Is this what we need an ombudsman for?

The Baltimore Sun recently installed Paul Moore as its public editor. After introducing himself his first column concerned the problem that"Gifts for Ehrlich baby raise ethical questions." The substance of his complaint was that some of the gifts came from reporters who might be covering the State House. For example Karen Hosler of the Sun and her husband (who are friendly with Gov and Mrs. Ehrlich) planted a tree in honor of the baby.
Now we don't have to worry about any conflict of interest because the Sun decided that Ms. Hosler won't cover any beats that may be compromised by her friendship with the governor.

Editorial Page Editor Dianne Donovan, Ms. Hosler's supervisor, had known previously about the friendship between Ms. Hosler and her husband and the Ehrlichs. After Mr. Ehrlich was elected, Ms. Donovan and Ms. Hosler agreed that Ms. Hosler would not write editorials about the governor or state politics. Following Mr. Nitkin's baby gift story, Ms. Donovan ruled that Ms. Hosler would not write anything at all regarding Maryland politics or policies. This means Ms. Hosler cannot cover two of her specialties, environment and health issues. "We simply can't give the impression of the expectation of favored treatment," Ms. Donovan said.

Whew! That's what I was worried about that a reporter for the Sun would give a fair break to the Republican Governor. There's more than a whiff of hypocrisy here.
For one thing the Baltimore Sun reported of the birth of the previous (Democratic) Governor's baby on August 19, 2002. It noted the gifts given to the family but it never reported the donors of the gifts. So why the extra scrutiny for a Republican governor? Is it possible that the Sun believes that conflicts of interest only are possible with a Republican in office?
Well, in the runup to re-match betweeen Governor Glendening and his GOP challenger Ellen Sauerbrey a fellow named John Frece wrote a scathing (and grossly unfair) attack on Mrs. Sauerbrey in support of his boss. The Sun included this little identification at the end:

John W. Frece covered Maryland government and politics for United Press International and The Sun for 17 years, including Ms. Sauerbrey's tenure in the House of Delegates and gubernatorial elections from 1978 through 1994. In January 1996, he became Mr. Glendening's press secretary and in July 1997 took over public outreach for the governor's "smart growth" initiative.

In other words, this fellow who had covered Mrs. Sauerbrey was so hostile to her aspirations to governor that he was the one who was picked by the incumbent to attack here. How do we know that when he was at the Sun he was covering Mrs. Sauerbrey fairly? Does the Sun even care?
And if we go back two weeks we had an editorial in the Sun accusing President Bush of allowing his brother to put pressure on Disney not to release a film by Michael Moore.

Now we know that Mr. Moore's films tend to benefit from controversy. And neither Hollywood agents nor executives are the most credible sources. But the fact is, a major U.S. corporation has acted in a manner that implies that the Bushes might misuse the power of elected office for speech-chilling, Nixon-like purposes. The brothers Bush, George W. and Jeb, need to stand up now and deny this outrageous allegation - unless, of course, it's true.

The Sun's premise of course was that Moore had a deal with Disney for distribution and that Disney backed off. But Moore acknowledged that Disney never had any such agreement. The Sun never retracted its outrageous editorial. And its public editor never returned my e-mail on the subject.
The problem isn't that people don't trust newspapers because their reporters will give baby gifts to some of their subjects. Newspapers aren't trusted by people who feel that the editorial pages dictate the coverage by the news reporters. Newspapers aren't trusted by people who feel that both the news and editorial pages are slanted too far to the left.
If the Sun's public editor, Paul Moore, thinks that we're bothered by gifts of baby bibs, he's full of what baby diapers are full of. And I would add that the slanted coverage is a lot more unethical than what a reporter does on his or her own time if that person has never demonstrated any dishonesty in his or her reporting. As one of the reporters responded to the decision of the Sun to remove her from covering the Governor:

Ms. Meisol calls the decision to bar her reporting about state government "dramatic, broad and severe."

"I have worked hard for two years to develop contacts with some of the highest-level people in the Maryland state government," she said. "It seems a big leap and an injury to me to imply to readers that I can no longer be objective on these topics because I gave somebody a baby bib."

Posted by SoccerDad at May 21, 2004 03:16 PM | TrackBack