Lincolnite

I love that Fell told the Journal Star that, for what he gets paid, he doesn’t give a rat’s ass what their policy is about campaign contributions.  Especially since Maxine Moul is a personal friend and the person who gave him his first work in the newspaper business.

It seems like overkill on the part of both parties and it’s too bad it had to happen.

1. I’ve started to get pop-ups asking me to take their survey.  Since I’m in the survey research field and understand how important responses are, I fill surveys out at pretty much every opportunity I can.  However, the last time I took a Journal Star survey, it took about 45 minutes (contrary to the 10-15 they said it would), and I’m not a slow survey-taker.  At the time, I unsuccessfully tried to contact their survey provider to complain.  I will not complete another survey for them. 

2. I don’t understand an ethics code that prevents contributions to political campaigns.  What about the freedom of speech they’re constantly trying to defend—why should their occupation prevent them from voicing their opinion and support?  Sure, as a private enterprise, they’re able to do whatever they want, but what happened to the principles they editorialize often?

And this line from one of today’s letters hits the nail on the head: “As to your assertion that this policy is in place to ensure impartiality in reporting, you apparently have not been reading your own newspaper. Almost daily, news stories (not columns or editorials) are filled with word choices that clearly indicate the political leanings or feelings of the reporter.” Rutledge’s implied surprise that her employees hold political beliefs is either great acting or extreme naivety.

And to apply the ethics code to someone who writes opinion pieces seems a bit dumb, especially when a person who picks the news stories keeps their job after violating said ethics code.  I know they make the distinction between Fell’s response and the other person’s response, but why have an ethics code if a violation results in ‘being reprimanded’? She did a great job of deflecting the violation of her actual employee onto Paul Fell’s response.  Otherwise, the employee in an actual news-delivering position may have been the focus of the story.

Would the LJS be surprised to find out that Neal leans just a little bit to the left?

3. Every time I hear a story about the cable debacle, I am more and more glad that I don’t watch TV.

4. Didn’t click the link so I am clueless.

P.S. Everything with a question mark is meant to be rhetorical. 😉

I guess I’m envious that you guys work in places where you can tell a national news outlet that you don’t give a rat’s ass about what your boss’s rules are and still expect to keep your job.

I took their survey this weekend and it was PAINFULLY time consuming.  I didn’t time myself but I would put it at 30-plus minutes, wouldn’t surprise me if it was 45.  Awful!

I guess I don’t know why newspaper employees must excuse themselves from the political process just because of their occupation. The implication is that journalists are incapable performing professionally. It’s not like Fell was running for office, he was supporting a personal friend who was running for office.

I know the executives at the newspapers where I used to work supported political candidates. That never influenced our coverage or opinion pieces, but maybe things are different now.

One need look no further than this very website for regular implications that journalists are incapable performing professionally. As Rutledge made clear in her column, the issue is perception of conflict.

A paper wouldn’t hire someone if they didn’t feel that person was not capable of doing their job correctly. But as we are all quite aware of, there are people who are more than willing to look for any reason to discredit a source they don’t agree with.

This common practice in journalism is designed to take away the ammunition from those who would use ad hominem attacks rather than facts or logic to discredit the news.

The unfortunate part of this “fear of perception” is that it tends to only be forced upon the newsroom; at the corporate level, newspapers and broadcasters are free to give to whomever they please.

<i>I guess I

Well Dave, I’m not sure what it is about freelancing that somehow makes it impossible to still have a code of conduct.

Do you really, honestly not see the difference between someone realizing they screwed up and immediately telling their higher-ups and someone saying “I don’t give a rat’s ass…” to MSNBC and leaving it at that? Come on, Dave.

As Rutledge made clear in her column, it wasn’t the violation of the rules that ended the relationship - it was the flagrant disregard for the policy.

This is hilarious, how you’re acting like the Journal Star is somehow hypocritical here - as if you would have a business relationship with someone who boasts about their disregard for your rules.

The hypocrisy is that, when people are offended by the content of cartoons, the newspaper dismisses that as having been written by someone who is not an employee of the newspaper.  Therefore, the newspaper is not responsible for the content, the cartoonist is.  However, those cartoonists are held to the same ethical standards as the other employees. Why is that?  If the newspaper feels it is not responsible for the content of the cartoons, why does it feel responsible if the person donates to political campaigns?  The newspaper is not exactly doing itself good by saying cartoonists are free to insult Christians but can’t donate to Maxine Moul’s congressional campaign.

Did the other person (name eludes me and I don’t want to look it up) admit to their mistake upon disclosure by MSNBC or did they admit to it upon realizing they violated the ethics code?  If it’s the latter, then this person should have been reprimanded whenever that happened.

From my understanding of the other person’s situation, based on Rutledge’s column, when MSNBC contacted her, she realized she screwed up, so then she contacted her supervisors and was then reprimanded.

As far as your allegations of hypocrisy are concerned, you seem to be shifting the target around, but so be it. And I guess I just fail to see how that’s hypocrisy. The paper doesn’t adopt the stances of their freelancers, yet they have a code of ethics for their freelancers to follow - a code that is standard across the board for journalists.

If one of their syndicated columnists started eating babies, they’d probably drop the column even though the baby-eater doesn’t work at the paper.

I find it amusing that Dave seems to have an original position that should please Neal, but they still can’t get along. I think Neal should be happy, as three more cartoon spots a week have opened up. As for Paul Fell, I never found his work that funny or brilliant, and I don’t give a rat’s ass that he’s gone. I wish he’d take all the copies of “You Might Be A ‘Husker If…” with him. More power for him to tell the LJS off, and more power to them for kicking him to the curb. I don’t think either one really needs the other. Sorry to interupt the action - carry on, men!

Well Fletch, I guess to respond to your surprise that I’m not skipping around and clicking my heels or textually hugging Dave, I neither take joy in the downfall of a fellow cartoonist nor am I stupid enough to badmouth the people who write my checks.

I may not like how “the biz” works, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to shoot myself in the foot with petty remarks. I’m aware enough of reality to know that the Journal Star isn’t unique in their ethics requirements.

Don’t IRS rules cover freelancers in that if a company requires them to do certain things, they’re no longer a freelancer, but an employee?

They sure do.