This is the right call. Cohen's explanation was too cute by half. Although it is true that the rules aren't perfect, they're useful and important. Disregarding them shouldn't be an option.

Cohen's column is boooooring ... please S-R, don't carry it. On second thought, I have insomnia, I'll read it before I go to bed.

Whoops, re-read it, thanks for not carrying it. Cohen tells people in his column each week not to make excuses and here he goes. Good grief.

Are you kidding, youre ignoring the elephant in the room. The issue is not 120 journalists gave money to political campaigns, but that 90% gave to 1 party. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Nobody votes for journalists yet they use their considerable influence to sway public opinion towards a single ideology.

Be afraid, be very afraid, the lefty nazis are on the march.

According to the report: "Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties."

I'm more concerned with the two who couldn't make up their minds which party to support. Unethical and wishy-washy to boot. Probably future politicos in the making.

Tim's finally uncovered the truth - the media are in a lockstep conspiracy to promote Democratic candidates.

That's why there was hardly any coverage of Bill Clinton's extra-marital affairs, Howard Dean's outburst after the Iowa caucus, or John Edwards' haircut.

In all seriousness, though, I'll issue the same challenge to Tim that I issue to anyone else who brings up the issue:

Show me some actual evidence that this newspaper or any other engages in systematically biased reporting in favor of a political ideology. I'm not talking about one or two stories you didn't like, or Bernard Goldberg's latest book. Show me some actual research.

With all those well-heeled political think tanks out there, surely someone has found the smoking gun, right?

Re: Tim's comments...I'm not sure this report provides much evidence of anything other than the fact a few journalists were lame enough to forget their obligations. The 140-some included in the report are a tiny fractional representation of the tens of thousands of American journalists. I might be wrong on this, but I vaguely recall that newspapers, alone, employ roughly 40,000 journalists.

There have been studies that show journalists tend to be more socially liberal than American society as a whole. But generalizations begin to crumble when you start talking about fiscal politics, government activism, etc. And anyone who reads the national press knows there is no journalistic consensus on the war.

So I think there is much yet to be determined re: bias.

I have never argued and don't believe that journalists are without opinions or bias. Of course we have points of view. But we are obligated by our craft to be fair and balanced. When we fall off the slippery slope by doing something dumb -- such as contributing to campaigns -- we demonstrate an arrogant lack of concern for either.

steve

...by the way...

We are in the process of revising and updating our internal code of ethics. A newsroom group led by Editorial Page Editor Doug Floyd and facilitated by Whitworth journalism professor Gordon Jackson has been working on the revisions for several weeks. I'm certain political involvement will be addressed once again.

I plan to post a draft of the proposed code on this blog by late summer or early fall. We'll solicit online reaction and also take the code out to the community in a series of public meetings.

steve

I am just so relieved that I heard this. I really don't know whether a contracted Corespondent is subject to these rules or not, but they make sense. A reporter cannot be objective if they are overtly supporting a specific campaign.

Herb Huseland

This is an exceptional, and much needed, conversation.

First, congratulations on (a) being the first, to my knowledge, to take a stand following Dedman’s article, and (b) taking the right stand. I’m a fan of Cohen’s, but he made a really bad ethical call here and then offered the weakest of justifications. Still, I’m less concerned about his contribution – he’s essentially an opinion columnist – than about that of, say, Guy Raz of NPR, a news reporter who’s now compromised himself and his various employers with a political donation.

Second, I disagree strongly with the comments of both “Tim” (whoever he is) and the response by Ken Paulman, your features editor. “Tim” suggests that Dedman’s report, showing that the huge majority of 144 journalists’ contributions went to Democrats or liberal organizations, proves there’s a liberal bias in the media generally. Mr. Paulman responds by saying that he wants “Tim” to come up with “actual evidence” of “systematically biased reporting.”

I suggest that “Tim” cannot come up with the evidence, but that it really doesn’t matter. The PERCEPTION is that journalists are left-leaning, and that their views regularly make it into their news decisions and reporting. For many, this report confirms the existence of the bias in reporters and their reporting, even though Dedman's report involves only a miniscule percentage of all journalists. I skew moderately liberal in my politics, but after Dedman’s report I am absolutely convinced that there is bias, mostly in what stories are selected, their placement in the paper, and the selection of emphasis in the stories themselves – and that’s even if reporters and editors strive for fairness, as I think most do.

Who cares about hard evidence and reality? The perception is the key, and these remarkably ill-advised political contributions confirm the perception. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

A no-contributions, no-political-activity policy is, in my view, a no-brainer. Now, how about if you reporters and editors stop voting too? A number already do (Len Downie, top editor at the Washington Post, is the most prominent that I’ve heard of). It won’t prove you don’t have opinions, or that the opinions don’t seep into the coverage, but it will show you’re really and truly serious about trying to be as fair as possible.

Paul Vancil (Chapel Hill, NC)

A better policy would be to allow reporters to make contributions, but also require them to report it to the editor and publish a list of donations by the newsstaff in the paper.

It is better for the readers to know the bias of the writers of the stories than to hide that bias.

So far as I can tell, Cohen's qualifications to be an "Ethicist" are only that the NYTimes hired him to be one. His claim that the partisan organization Moveon.Org.
is comparable to the Boy Scouts (do the Scouts bar kids who parents vote Republican?) is stupid at best, self-serving disengenuousness at worst. Good for the S-R.!

I get it, and I agree that reporters shouldn't make political contributions. But what are we afraid of in this case? That Randy Cohen will be unduly influenced by the forces of bad manners?
These journalists made mistakes, but it's hard to get up in arms about travel writers and sports statisticians giving money to politicians.

I am not surprised at all by Cohen's suspect reasoning, or questionable behavior. I am part of both the professional and academic ethics community, and Cohen's qualifications (what are they, again?) and approach (a moving target suited to the moment) have been questioned loudly by the field for many years. There are a number of good writers on practical ethics out there, and many of them have qualifications, standards, and readabilty that far exceed what Cohen offers. While jealousy (yes, ethics professionals suffer from jealousy, too) over his success plays a part in the long standing animosity, the fact remains that Cohen's success is mostly attributable to his approachable and clever style (face it: he writes an advice column), and not to his knowledge of the subject, academic or professional qualifications, nor personal character. It won't be hard to find someone better - I hope you will. The subject of ethics in everyday life is worth a column.

So let me see if I have this straight: Randy Cohen is not a reporter, does not write about politics, and is being penalized for violating a policy of the Spokesman-Review three years before he was supposed to start writing for the paper?

Yes, the S-R is making too much of this.

More on Dedman here: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/FineOnMedia/archives/2007/06/the_extremely_t.html

What is the statue of limitations on such a donation and its affect on one's ability to earn a living, etc? Five years, 10 years, no years? If a reporter contributed anything to anybody at anytime, does that make him or her subject to lifelong sanctions? What if he or she voted in any election, local or national? Does that make him or her out of bounds? Just a thought.

Of course everybody makes mistakes.

The problem for me wasn't so much that Cohen had made the contribution. It was his rationalization of it. If he had acknowledged that it was a lapse of judgment and apologized, it would be a different story.

Instead, he equated directly influencing a political race with putting money in the collection basket at church. Sorry, but that just doesn't wash.

Can you imagine what a column based on this might look like?

Q: My employer has a clear policy against campaign contributions. I think I should be exempt from this policy and allowed to make donations, because I don't see any difference between this and other forms of civic involvement. What should I do?

A: By all means, ignore the policy, quietly make your contribution, and hope that no one finds out. If you get caught, agree to abide by the policy in the future, but don't acknowledge any wrongdoing - you'll be able to rationalize it after the fact.

One of Cohen's recent columns advised a questioner to turn down a job because it would have involved working on behalf of a tobacco company. In this case, if the Times' policy against political involvement is so terribly wrong-headed, wouldn't the principled, ethical thing be to step down for the greater good of MoveOn.org?

The Spokesman-Review seems oddly giddy about spiking Cohen's column. So much so, in fact, that it is ignoring a few salient, and arguably crucial, facts:

1. The generally-held policy limiting reporters from making political contributions is meant to ensure (or at least feign)reportorial objectivity. Indeed, this is important for news reporters, who are obligated to report facts in an unbiased fashion.

2. But newspapers also employ opinion writers. Editorialists, columnists and the like, who are hired precisely BECAUSE they have strongly-held opinions. See how their pictures and names are such a prominent part of the prseentation? That's because they're not writing news. They're writing their opinions about the news (or events, or ethics, or whatever)

3. Randy Cohen is a columnist. He is billed as such. His picture often appears on his column.

That the S-R is punishing him for expressing his opinion in another way is more than slightly absurd. Does the newspaper also limit its editorialists and political columnists from expressing opinions? Does it choose not to run the columns of George Will, given his obvious Republican connections? Does it stay away from Frank Rich because he's so obviously a liberal Democrat?

The only thing separating Cohen from Will and Rich (or any other syndicated columnist) is that he doesn't actually write about politics. How his contributions to MoveOn.org affect or distort his ethical writings is beyond me.

Follow Jon Fine's link back to BusinessWeek and you'll see he calls the decision "idiocy" while loudly boasting of all his political donations.

But he took the time to parachute into this forum and criticize the paper on incorrect terms. Actually, Cohen violated the contribution guidelines of his own employer and then did a tap dance about it when caught. No one like a hypocrite, especially one who pretends to be an arbiter of ethics.

I think it's safe to say being accused of "idiocy" by a columnist as sloppy and muddle-headed as Jon Fine is a badge of honor.

And I say that as someone who writes as a columnist from what is often a progressive political standpoint--but who has never and would never give a nickel to a political group or candidate because I hold my professional credibility too dear.

How his contributions to MoveOn.org affect or distort his ethical writings is beyond me.

Because they were unethical. Next question?

Also, this idea that people either write about politics or they don't is absurd (and I say this as someone who writes about "the culture of politics and the politics of culture"). The TV critic of the Chicago Tribune ran into that issue when she made a political donation and later wrote a column with political overtones. The Trib's editors rightly then banned all contributions from editorial employees because there are always going to be too many exceptions.

It's so bizarre that columnists especially would create even the appearance of a conflict here because they are given a platform from which to share their views that the average person could never dream of. And then to leave yourself open to readers discounting your views on the basis of being directly linked to a person or issue you're writing about. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

What about film critics who review Michael Moore's new film, auto writers who touch on political fights over fuel standards, food writers who get into the politics of genetically modified foods, etc. etc. etc.

People like Fine and equally silly people on the right say it's about being transparent with biases. But it's not. Contributions represent conflicts of interest.

Finally, the notion that professional journalists are out there every day slanting the news to reflect their personal biases just does not hold up to scrutiny. If anything, most reporters go out of their way to make sure they're fairly representing viewpoints they disagree with. When I reported with admiration for my blogging column on the political savvy of anti-abortion bloggers, there were no complaints from the right or the subjects of the piece, who are as right-wing as anyone you'll find. Unless we are writing opinion columns, we are trained to be professional and fair, sometimes to a fault. Yes, there are exceptions (hello, Fox News), but they are the exceptions.

And we're still trained to be professional and fair when writing columns of course--but we can then inject reasoned opinions into the mix.

This quote sure makes it sound like Cohen's column is being spiked because of the S-R's--not the NYT's--policy:

"Features Editor Ken Paulman, who moved our popular Wheel Life column to the Sunday Travel section in part to make room for Cohen, spoke for the newsroom this morning when he said it would by hypocritical of us to run an ethics column by a journalist who is in violation of our own ethics policy. Had he been a Spokesman-Review staff member, he would have faced suspension, at least, for his misstep."

As for me, I'm happy to be transparent about where my dollars went. And while I'm not the hugest fan of Cohen's column, I do find his following observation persuasive:

" . . . to have an opinion is not to have a bias. To conceal one’s political opinions is not to be without them."

Fairness and transparency strike me as nobler, and more attainable, journalistic goals than objectivity. Hiding an opinion doesn't make it go away.

No one's asking you to hide your opinions, Jon. We're just asking you and other journalists not to become _directly involved_ with politicians and political groups.

From now on, anything you write on John Kerry or issues he supports, readers can legitimately accuse you of being in the tank for him, even if you're not.

You hand them the cudgel. And you hand it to them in a way that makes it easy for them to beat on everyone in the profession.

How about a little more thought and a little less bloviating?

So do you plan to look into whether Miss Manners and Heloise make political contributions, and ax their
columns if they do?

It is understandable that you might not want the journalists who work for you to make contribute money to political campaigns, but writing a column like The Ethicist has nothing to do with journalism. Journalism is about reporting the news, and the Ethicist does not cover the news.

Cohen violated the _ethical_ guidelines of his own publication and then refused to acknowledge he did anything suspect, basically alleging the rules aren't perfect so he exempted himself from following them.

He writes a column on ethics.

Do you not see the direct connection? How could readers trust his credibility on the subject of ethics after he wilfully violated the _ethics_ guidelines of the paper he writes for.

I'm surprised the NYT hasn't dropped his column. If I was his editor, he would be looking for work today.

For a link to the original newsroom discussion and Smith's philosophy about the S-R's rules, see the newspaper's "Daily Briefing" log at http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/briefing/

This has been an excellent discussion. And I really welcome the contributions of Jon Fine and all of the others who came to this blog through outside sources.

I made a statement at our news meeting this morning that probably ought to be repeated here.

Our decision to drop Cohen's column wasn't intended as an "in-you-face Randy Cohen" move. And it wasn't because he violated the NYT's policy or then offered up what I think of as a rather silly rationalization.

We dropped him for the sake of consistency.

Our ethics code is quite strict on conflict-of-interest violations, including political activity. And it applies to all newsroom staffers, from the front desk receptionist to the editor. And people who violate the ethics code are subject to sanction even if the violation is three years old and just comes to light. So if our code obligates me to sanction a staffer who violates, how can I not impose what passes as a sanction on a contributor?

I should note we do our best to hold our contributors -- freelancers, correspondents, syndicated columnists, etc. -- to the same standards applied to staff. We've dropped some of all in the past for breaches of our ethics policy.

These decisions are more about us than they are about the individuals involved.

In the end, the message I'm trying to send by dropping Cohen isn't aimed at Cohen, but aimed at my own staff and our readers.

Does that make sense?

steve

So do you plan to look into whether Miss Manners and Heloise make political contributions, and ax their
columns if they do?

Greg raises a good point. As a rule, we don't go around policing the activities of our staff or correspondents. Instead, we make our expectations clear up front and trust that our writers will act accordingly.

Would we drop Miss Manners if she had made a political contribution three years ago? It's hard to say in the abstract. I would lean towards dropping it, but I can't say for certain. I don't know if readers have an expectation that Miss Manners would be apolitical, as long as she was polite about it.

Now, if Miss Manners chewed out a waiter and dumped a glass of wine on him, then I'd probably drop the column, even though there's nothing in our ethics policy specifically forbidding verbal abuse of restaurant staff. Miss Manners has set her self up as an expert on etiquette, and readers expect her to act in accordance with the standards she lays out for everyone else.

Similarly, Randy Cohen has set himself up as an expert on ethics. His contribution, and subsequent rationalization, have been deemed unethical according to this newsroom's standards. To debut the column with this knowledge in hand would be incredibly tone-deaf and would raise questions about our own credibility and devotion to those policies.

Is this a double-standard? Perhaps. I think you have to look at all of the circumstances involved. If we're talking about our own staffers, or news writers, then it's pretty cut-and-dry.

But Cohen and Miss Manners are more entertainment than news, and I don't think it's reasonable to apply the same rigorous standards to the originator of every single piece of content that appears in the paper. I'm of the understanding that cartoonist Garry Trudeau has donated thousands to Democratic candidates, but, to me, that doesn't create a conflict of interest because his work is overtly and transparently political.

So again, my primary issue with Cohen wasn't his political involvement, it was the fact that he knowingly violated his own company's policy and did backflips to justify it. I believe that readers expect better from an ethics columnist.

As you can see, Steve and I are not necessarily of a like mind on this, but that's the way these discussions work. Everyone brings different sets of concerns to the table, and sometimes they lead to the same conclusion.

This was a judgment call, based on what we believe our readers expect from us. Others are certainly free to disagree.

I find your policy to be overly restrictive. To force someone to give up his/her rights and responsibilities as a citizen is very questionable. I do agree that you have the obligation to inform your readers and a list of political organizations and donations would seem to fulfill that. Obviously that would extend to reporters, editors, and owners of (guesswork here perhaps 1% or more of outstanding stock) the paper (or other media).

I think a more serious problem is when scientific controversy is reported on: things like Stem Cell research, Global Warming, Evolution, etc. The concept of "Dueling Adversaries" sometimes works in politics and war but it doesn't in science. Might makes Right (dead) in war and politics but it just makes for no progress while the bystander goes right on making progress in science.

The idea of pitting one (often tongue-tied) scientist against a very verbal but totally clueless demagogue doesn't shed much light. It is much harder to carefully evaluate the positions in scientific related controversy but that is your self professed job.

I could easily become quite boring regarding scientific ethics and methods but others have done it very well. Most general media falls down quite badly in this area.

All due respect to Steve and the other S-P editors who weighed in, I still think the decision to axe "The Ethicist" is absurd. Not just because his column has nearly nothing to do with politics. Not just because even if it was entirely political, he's a columnist who -- hello? -- is paid to have an opinion. But also because in all this debate about the contributions and biases of reporters, no one ever seems to consider, let alone raise, the influence the bosses of their bosses -- eg, the owners of the newspapers -- may be having on the publications. Does anyone tell Rupert Murdoch it's unethical for him to contribute to politicians? Or Sumner Redstone, or Si Newhouse, or anyone in their position? Of course not. And yet, they wield serious influence over what gets printed and what doesn't. And when Murdoch, to cite the most glaring example, wants to punish a politician (or anyone) who has earned his wrath, he does not hesitate ot instruct his editors to do just that.

Let's also consider the unstated quid-pro-quo relationships that exist betweenn the political and media elites in Washington, D.C. The Tim Russerts, the George Stephanopolouses, the Karl Roves, the Richard Armitages, the Robert Novaks. The ones whose careers are all about perpetuating power and influence and/or access to the poweful and influential. I wonder what compromises they make on a daily basis? And I have to wonder because no one is ever going to write that story, because...guess what!...that would end their access to the powerful and influential.

Is this really as dark and awful as I make it sound? I don't know. Maybe all these people have the ethics and courage to report exactly what's going even when it screws over one of their key souces. I like to think that's true.

But it's hard to know for sure because we're all so busy debating over whether Randy Cohen's contribution to moveon.org means he's not ethical enough to write an ethics column.

Frankly, if you can manage to screw up such a simple matter as this - and really, your decision to drop this columnist for the reasons you give exhibits an inability to think rationally - I really have to wonder about the rest of the content of your site. I can trust your site to have free expression because you have too many useless rules than pander to the lowest common denominator of paranoia & idiocy. Since I am not bound by your rules of ethics - I can tell you the unvarnished truth.

As a result of Bill Dedman's story at MSNBC on the political contributions to Democrat or leftwing groups by members of the media, ethics columnist Randy Cohen of the NY Times was caught with his ass hanging out over the railing for contributing to the rabidly left wing nutroots group MoveOn.org. The New York Post editorial taking the media to task for these contribution notes that Randy Cohen has called MoveOn "nonpartisan". Yeah, so is the New York Times I guess.

So here's a nonpartisan evlauation of MoveOn and what MoveOn did with the NY York Times ethics columnist's money that election cycle. The following is based on information available at PolicticalMoneyLine.

Under, "Contributions To Non-Candidate, Non-Party Committees By MOVEON PAC" (2004 Election Cycle)

MOVEON 59 contributions to candidates, ALL Democrat

MOVEON 10 contributions to PACs, ALL Democrat

So let's look at the PACs:

AMERICA COMING TOGETHER 9 contributions to candidates, ALL Democrat

AMERICA WORKS COMMITTEE 55 contributions to candidates, ALL Democrat

COMMITTEE FOR A PROGRESSIVE CONGRESS INC 34 contributions to candidates, ALL Democrat

CORPAC 34 contributions to candidates, ALL Democrat

L A PAC 32 contributions to candidates, ALL Democrat

PAC TO THE FUTURE 85 contributions to candidates, ALL Democrat

PRAIRIE LEADERSHIP COMMITTEE 0 (No records on file)

PROGRESSIVE CHOICES PAC 34 contributions to candidates, ALL Democrat

SEARCHLIGHT LEADERSHIP FUND 53 contributions to candidates, ALL Democrat

So MoveOn contributes directly or indirectly to over 460 candidates, ALL DEMOCRAT, yet MoveOn is "nonpartisan.

Thank you New York Times, had I believed my own lying eyes, I might have concluded MoveOn is partisan.

Thanks for clearing that up.

BTW, all you folks defending Randy Cohen's ethics. He lied. On the FEC records he's listed as a self-employed writer. He's making probably 99% of his living from his NYT paycheck and yet he's listed as "self-employed".

Maybe it's the FEC's fault on that, they confused self-emploed with self-absorbed.

raouldeming at hotmail dot com

So it's OK to support organizations that discriminate? As Mr. Cohen said, the boy scouts discriminate against gays and atheists and have kowtowed to the mormon cult in order to keep numbers up. The Catholic church is acting cultish by trying to convert others to its brand of faith and still has much to answer for with regards to the Vatican's actions between 1933 and 1945. It seems Mr. Cohen has more ethics than the Spokesman Review.

I'm one of the donors cited in the report. I said, at the time, that I didn't think we had a policy against it, but I've subsequently found out that we do.

I think it's a bad policy, and I side with those who think transparency is a better way to go. I don't know a single one of our readers, who are, as far as I can tell, an intelligent bunch, who thinks that the paper isn't a liberal bastion. I on the other hand am alarmed at the growing conservative trends in our opinions, reporting and columns.

What's the reader to think, when he/she sees the increasingly conservative tone of the paper and then finds out someone's giving money to the Democrats? The reader may conclude that at least the donation isn't biasing the outcome.

Now I do think it would be foolish of the paper to make donations to candidates they supported, but the individual reporters? Come on.

I think it's an overarching bad policy of any business to suppress the right of freedom of expression in its employees, much less a newspaper, and there is no human in this society who has less freedom of expression than a reporter, who must conscientiously free him/herself from all biases in an attempt to cover the news fairly, and it said reporter has an opinion, it must be rigidly suppressed.

If a reporter's work appears with a bias, it's the fault of the editor who let it run that way.

I realize that my opinions of how a newspaper should operate are planted firmly in the 19th century, but there it is. I think we should stand for something beyond the razor edge of fairness.

I think we can all agree that there's no perfect prescription for maintaining independence (or the appearance of independence). At some point, a line has to be drawn in the sand, and there will always be disagreement over whether the line was drawn in the right place.

The idea that journalists should go ahead and make political donations and just be up front with readers about it is not without merit. I'd find it a lot more convincing, however, if the people making the argument had actually disclosed their donations to their editors in the first place, instead of waiting until they were outed by an investigative reporter. Sorry, but you can't make a claim to transparency if you don't tell anyone what you're up to.

A friend and former colleague once described to me the rules he imposes for himself on his personal Web site. "Don't post anything you wouldn't want your mom or your boss to read."

Similarly, a good rule of thumb for journalists is to not engage in any civic activity that you wouldn't want your editors or your readers to know about. Readers' expectations will vary and are difficult to gauge. Editors' expectations, though, are generally pretty easy to scope out. If it isn't written down in the ethics policy, it doesn't take more than an email or phone call to get clarification.

If you think the policy is too restrictive, then lobby to have it changed. If you lack the foresight to make sure you're square with the rules before writing a check to someone (or, if you "don't give a rat's ass"), then it may be advisable to choose another profession.

Everyone makes mistakes, and I would never condemn anyone for a genuine misunderstanding of the rules. And some of the examples Dedman identifies may be just that.

However, this rush to defend and justify some journalists' willful and reckless disregard for one of our most fundamental ethical standards, I fear, will do far more damage to our collective credibility than the news of the donations themselves.

It is to laugh.

The ETHICIST parvenu commits an ethical violation and then (in further breach of ethics) spins story upon story to defend his actions - and some of you want him to continue writing on ETHICS?

I don't care for Cohen either way - usually just ignore him - to have him not just shoot himself in the foot but shoot it again AND ask us to reload his gun? Priceless!

change "...him - to have him..." to "him - but to have him..."

Sheesh. Where's the dang EDIT key? I'm sure there must be one - looks like the ETHICIST might have one that's never been used.

I think Howie Kurtz (who has his own conflict of interest issues built into his beat and CNN employment), put it well today, hitting some of the same beats Paulman and I have been here:

"Some of these folks remain in denial. When you become a journalist, you give up the right to back political candidates or parties with your checkbook. And in this age of federal disclosures, it always comes out.

"The news outlets that don't ban donations seem to regard them as a matter of personal preference, like joining the PTA. But they seriously underestimate the public distrust of journalists, which is only fueled by such practices. Those who work for opinion magazines or are employed as commentators have a stronger case that their views are no secret. But there is still an important distinction between rhetorically supporting a candidate and helping bankroll one.

"The scorecard -- 125 of 144 donations to Democrats -- provides fresh ammunition to those who say the press has a liberal tilt. It's hard to argue you don't favor one party when you've just coughed up cash for that party."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/24/AR2007062401677_pf.html