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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Sign me up, not

Reporters  gone wild!

In this politically charged climate, Wisconsin residents have gotten caught up in state politics with an intensity not seen in decades.

It's an issue this newspaper has covered extensively, including Sunday, when the Gannett Wisconsin Media Investigative Team broke a story exposing 29 circuit court judges who signed the petitions to recall Gov. Scott Walker.

Our journalists are expected to provide you with the clearest picture of the news as it develops — with objectivity and impartiality. And, as readers, you must be able to trust that your newspaper is providing you the most complete picture, without bias of any kind.

In the interest of full transparency, we are informing readers today that 25 Gannett Wisconsin Media journalists, including seven at the Green Bay Press-Gazette, signed the recall petition. It was wrong, and those who signed the petition were in breach of Gannett's principles of ethical conduct.

[. . .]

 

A number of the journalists told their editors they did not consider signing the petition a political act. They equated it to casting a ballot in an election. But we do not make that distinction.

And they probably shouldn't make that distinction.

Certainly a news organization can go too far in trying to keep its people above the fray of day-to-day life to convince readers or viewers of their objectivity and neutrality. The Journal Gazette is like that -- or at least it used to be. Their reporters aren't allowed to join even things like community service organization boards. I think that divorces you from the ordinary concerns of ordinary people so much that it becomes impossible to report on the community in any coherent way. We've tried to be a little more common-sensical at The News-Sentinel. The general rule is that we can join organizations, but we make full disclosure  of what we belong to so people can judge our work accordingly.

But participating in the political process is tricky. It's the one area citizens depend on us the most in order to have the informed consent necessary for open government to work. We can vote like anybody else -- we're citizens, too, after all. At the other end of the scale, actually running for office or even working on somebody's campaign is verboten. In between, it's a judgment call. I'd say signing a petition is more like marching in a protest than it is voting. It sends a clear, overt signal of where somebody stands and makes everything they report on suspect.

I know the rules are changing, in large part because of the personal nature of Internet efforts like this blog. And I know that true objectivity is impossible. Still, I think it's worth holding on to some semblance of impartiality as long as we can. I suppose the rules are a little looser for those on editorial pages -- we make a living expressing our opinions, don't we? Still, I wouldn't sign a petittion or take part in a protest march. The last thing I signed was in the 1960s and involved the Berrigan brothers. See, I wasn't always this wise.

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