Your First Blog Post: Comment on This Situation

Is it ethical for a journalist to march in a gay pride parade?

My reaction to your comments

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Excellent discussion, which leaves much to unpack. Here are a few ideas.

Yes, you are correct that the description is brief. I did that to emphasize a key aspect of the Potter Box: Often we rush toward an ethics decision without taking into account enough basic facts. That’s why Christians described The PB as a circle. The journalist begins with “the facts” but frequently has to return to the beginning to get more of them.

Many of you talked about how we first must consider the journalist as a private citizen, exercising a 'God given' right outside hir role as a journalist. (I’m sorry. But today I just can’t use “their” in spite of recent AP approval because I’m feeling old-fashioned. In fact, I’m drinking one.)

In such instances, you are marching not to write about your experience, either as news or as opinion. But as Racquel points out, many news organizations have strict rules about employees participating in political activities that, management says, will bring into question the “objectivity” of the publication.

Here’s a chunk of an article from the Berkeley Daily Planet more than a decade ago. Copy editor Gordon Bill Pates was reassigned because he gave money to presidential candidate John Kerry. Also:

• In March 2003, technology reporter Henry Norr was suspended and then fired after he participated in civil disobedience at an anti-war rally. In a statement printed in the paper, managers claimed that Norr had violated the ethics policy, since “any journalist who assumes a prominent public role in any political issue inevitably creates the appearance of that conflict [of interest].” Norr argued that his activism created no conflict of interest, since he wrote about computers, not politics and war. He claimed that the true motive for his firing was retaliation for his opposition to the Iraq war and the occupation of Palestine. Again, an outpouring of public support failed to move the Chronicle. Norr filed a union grievance and a criminal complaint, but the parties eventually settled out of court, and Norr never returned to his job. (Full disclosure: the author of this article is the daughter of Henry Norr.) 

• In March 2004, reporter Rachel Gordon and photographer Liz Mangelsdorf were barred from covering San Francisco’s same-sex marriages after they married each other. Some observers compared the Chronicle’s actions to prohibiting black journalists from covering civil rights protests. Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Bevan Dufty organized a support rally for Gordon and Mangelsdorf, and the National Association of Gay and Lesbian Journalists denounced the Chronicle’s move. Once again, managers did not respond. In this case, the Chronicle’s arguments about journalistic objectivity were rendered all the more bizarre by the paper’s enthusiastic support of gay marriage. It was an official sponsor of this year’s marriage-themed Gay Pride Parade, ran pink advertisements proclaiming “We come out every day,” and posted an album of same-sex wedding pictures on its website. 

Credibility and ethics

Chronicle managers justified most of these incidents by arguing that the paper must protect its credibility and avoid accusations of bias. But restricting workers’ political rights is not a standard component of respectable journalism. Ted Glasser, director of Stanford’s graduate program in journalism, says that the ethics policy is “inappropriate, although unfortunately it’s not peculiar to the Chronicle.” 

First of all, reporters are human beings, and their biases won’t disappear simply because they’re not allowed to put bumper stickers on their cars. “The policy doesn’t prevent conflicts of interest, it just encourages employees to hide their interests,” said Glasser. This makes it more difficult for readers to critically evaluate what they read.

Furthermore, “conflict of interest” usually refers to a situation where a reporter has a financial or personal stake in the subject she’s covering—like a business reporter who writes about a company she owns stock in. Chronicle managers have never explained how expressing a political opinion constitutes a conflict of interest. “You can have interests and act professionally,” said Glasser. “In Pates’ case, the individual didn’t benefit in any way from his contribution, and there’s no evidence that he was biased.”

Here’s a section from build-your-own-code-of-ethics by the Online News Association:

The traditional approach of journalism in Western societies has been that journalists must abstain from direct political activity. Most mainstream media organizations bar employees from such activities. The SPJ Code of Ethics says that journalists should “avoid political and other outside activities that may compromise integrity or impartiality, or may damage credibility.” The New York Times ethics handbook says that staff journalists are “entitled to vote,” but warns them off anything more involved. “Journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics,” the handbook states, and then iterates a laundry list of political no-nos for its writers: no campaign buttons, candidates’ lawn signs or political donations, among others.

Here’s more from NY Times ethics guide dated 2004 but still linked to today.

65.

Staff members may not march or rally in support of public

causes or movements, sign ads taking a position on public

issues, or lend their name to campaigns, benefit dinners or

similar events if doing so might reasonably raise doubts about

their ability or TheTimes’s ability to function as neutral

observers in covering the news. Staff members must keep in

mind that neighbors and other observers commonly see them

as representatives of The Times.

And here’s a more contemporary discussion from earlier this year. (See boldface.)

Non-Marching Orders: Newspaper Bars Employees from Women’s March

By Maria Gaura

Over the course of the 2016 election, media companies wrestled with increasingly knotty ethical challenges—how to avoid false equivalencies in reporting, what to call a blatant lie, and how to respond professionally (impartially?) to a candidate who routinely called journalists “liars” and “scum”.

As Inauguration Day draws near, and Donald Trump’s attacks on news media and individual reporters escalate, newsrooms are girding themselves for battle with a renewed emphasis on journalistic ethics. But some new rules aimed at placing journalists above reproach, are raising questions about First Amendment rights. 

   

San Francisco Chronicle Editor-in-Chief Audrey Cooper raised eyebrows recently by notifying newsroom employees that participation in the January 21st Women’s March on Washington, or any similar marches, would be considered a violation of the newspaper’s ethics policies, a potential firing offense.

“No newsroom employee, regardless of job function or title, can participate in political demonstrations of any sort,” Cooper wrote, as part of a longer email to staff. “This is effective immediately.”

Political reporters, especially at legacy media, generally embrace stringent limits on personal expression. Most commonly, journalists are forbidden to donate to candidates or political causes, or take public positions on issues they are assigned to cover, specifically including participation in marches or protests.

But the Chron’s non-marching orders apply equally to workers far removed from political coverage: copy editors, page designers, sportswriters. And while the Women’s March was specifically made off-limits, the Chronicle has long encouraged employees to participate in San Francisco’s annual Gay Pride Parade, with staff and management marching beneath a Chronicle banner.

“I believe [management’s] argument has something to do with Pride being a celebration, and the Women’s March, while billed as a civil rights event, is perceived as more of a protest,” said a Chronicle staffer, one of several who declined to be identified for this story. “But a lot of people see equal pay, gender equality, and reproductive rights as civil rights. Nobody can tell us why the Women’s March is considered political and Pride is not.”

Yet withdrawing Chronicle support from Pride in the name of consistency, which nobody interviewed for this story suggested, could raise other concerns.

“Gay Pride is something that appeared to have left the realm of controversy, and gained a solid public consensus,” said Edward Wasserman, Dean of Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and a professor of journalism ethics. “Twenty years ago, reproductive rights were not considered controversial. Is that acceptance problematized with a different crowd in power in Washington? Do we now take it out again and have another look?”

One Chronicle staffer was more blunt. “When we write about attacks on LGBT rights, or women’s rights, do we now assume civil rights are negotiable? Do we say hey, on the other hand, here’s the anti-women, anti-gay argument? Is it a false equivalency?”

Down the Peninsula at the San Jose Mercury News, reporters and management have huddled repeatedly to discuss emerging ethical concerns, according to Bay Area News Group Executive Editor Neil Chase. But the paper has no blanket policy banning participation in the Women’s March, or similar events.

“This is a topic of conversation in every news room, I imagine,” Chase said. “Right now, the political climate makes us stop and question everything, we are all being exceptionally careful. That said, I trust everyone in my newsroom to make a lot of commonsense judgments every day, and to talk to their editors when there’s an issue.

“You have to look at things on a case-by-case basis,” Chase said. “Honestly, a bigger issue for me is people posting their opinions on social media, sometimes very strong opinions that they would not normally express in person. That’s a challenge for us.”

Public broadcaster KQED has not singled out the Women’s March as an event of special ethical concern, but forbids participation in events “to the extent that participation may call [KQED]’s objectivity on a particular issue into question,” per its ethics policy. KQED’s policy applies to staff responsible for content on its radio, television and digital news operations.

“We haven’t revised our ethics policy in response to recent events,” said Managing Editor for News Ethan Lindsey (UC Berkeley, 2000). “But during the election campaign our Vice President of News Holly Kernan sent a note to staff restating our ethics policies, and reminding people of our responsibilities as journalists.”

The Chronicle has formed an internal committee to examine and propose further changes to its official ethics policy, but in the meantime, the Pacific Media Workers Guild, which represents newsroom staff, has been asked by members to weigh in on the no-marching rule. 

“The Chronicle, to its credit, is trying to upgrade standards,” said Guild Executive Officer Carl Hall (’82). “But we need clarity on … the rights of people maybe not even indirectly involved in covering Trump or women’s rights issues. My feeling is that any prohibition should be no broader than necessary to keep the news free of suspicions of bias.”

The Guild is also an official sponsor of San Francisco’s Pride celebration, Hall noted. “Maybe there is a difference between gay rights and women’s rights events, but I don’t see it immediately.”

Applying First Amendment limitations to a wider swath of employees is bound to cause a stir, Wasserman said, but the trade-off is a stronger corporate public image.

“As a person who frets over ethics, I don’t necessarily object to [the Chronicle’s new rules], but I do quarrel with casting them as expressions of an ethical position,” Wasserman said. “Avoiding the appearance of institutional bias is really brand management, so let’s call it that.

“Publications like the National Review or Mother Jones are proud to carry a banner of political orientation and preference, and nobody reading them is misled,” Wasserman said. “The Chronicle is holding a different banner aloft, and that is the banner of neutrality. And I have respect for that, there is a niche in public discourse that it fills.”

Chronicle Editor Cooper declined to discuss the issue with a reporter but did offer two statements via email:

“I have … reminded our journalist employees that political protest is not appropriate or ethical professional conduct. This newsroom will continue to cover the president-elect, his policies and his administration. We will do so ethically, honestly and unapologetically.

“Certainly, ethical discussions always involve shades of gray. My job is to help our newsroom serve our readers and the public by providing fair and accurate news coverage. That includes helping us avoid actual or perceived conflicts of interest.”

Posted on January 18, 2017 - 1:58pm

Good stuff. And we haven’t even touched on how a journalist should behave if assigned to cover the pride parade. Points you raised include:

·      Should you cover from the sidelines, moving between participants and spectators, or march from beginning to end?

·      Should you identify yourself as a reporter? The answer to this may seem obvious, but can you imagine instances where the reporter might legitimately be undercover, perhaps when covering a Nazi rally? (Our next essay will cover undercover reporting.) If you are walking along not having identified yourself as a reporter, is it ethical to quote overheard conversation. If I recall the relevant law, it is not invasion of privacy to publish information overheard when the speaker should reasonably assume he or she might be overheard. This situation may be a good example of something that is legal but not ethical.

·      Should you lie to interviewee about supporting the LGBT community? Why disclose at all? How about lying to create conflict. (Back to “some people say.”)

·      Should you lie about or otherwise avoid using information that contradicts your personal position or that of your publication, which may well have a slant.

·      Should you keep interviewing until you are content that you have at least made a good faith effort to discover contrary opinion? One of the heartbreaks of J1 occurs when a student interviews five people on a topic and begins, “Most USF students think that ….

·      Should a reporter – or more to the point a news organization – embrace transparency to the extent a reporter covering a gay pride parade disclose sexual orientation in a methods box at the end of the story?

One final comment: Rawls insists that we as human beings should always sympathize with the most disadvantaged, with the oppressed. Does that mean a reporter should have a different mindset when covering a gay pride parade in Cheraw, South Carolina, than in San Francisco?