Monday, February 4, 2008

Not Possible

Fraley wants reporters to disclose who they voted for when reporting a story ...

How?

Should they hold up the voting receipt to verify this with their viewers?

There is simply no way to verify this. Many professional news organizations don't let their reporters contribute time or money to campaign, but it's absurd to suddenly demand that reporters' votes be made public when every other voter gets the privilege of privacy. It creates an instantaneously absurd double standard.

Business journalists do this because the way they report on a given stock could create a conflict of interest that could earn them an immediate financial windfall. Voting for candidate X earns no one any financial gain. Besides, what would happen if a reporter votes for Candidate X and then six months later regrets the decision (as frequently happens with other kinds of voters)? Does he or she have to disclose that too? If you keep going down this path eventually you'll have a disclosure policy that surpasses the actual news of any given event so much that any given story will be a history the reporter's opinion of the newsmaker.

Suggesting mandatory disclosure from reporters is a frivolous idea

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