Two reporters suspended for making political donations
Style Weekly, an alternative weekly in Richmond, reports that two reporters from the daily Richmond Times Dispatch were suspended after it was found they made political donations. The code of conduct they violated, I assume, was based on the notion of journalist objectivity.
I find the sense that journalists must be unpolitical neutral tennis nets rather silly and always have. Malcolm Gladwell, best-selling author and New Yorker writer, has a great essay on his website arguing that journalists can have political leanings and still be objective. Also, this idea of neutrality falls into the logical fallacy that all opinions–and political schools of thought–are created equal. This is the same mentality that creationists use when they argue that “all theories must be taught.”
