freedom of the press
Los Angeles Times - March 19, 2007
prezmedia19mar19,0,5330698,full.story> News media and politics: an uneasy union
Some prominent journalists have mates who work for a presidential = candidate. They approach this potential conflict in different ways.
By James Rainey, Times Staff Writer Some of America’s most prominent political journalists are, quite = literally, wedded to the 2008 presidential race: Their spouses work = for one of the candidates. Relationships that cross the media-political divide raise ethical = questions for the journalists and their employers. Should the = potential conflict of interest merely be disclosed to readers or = viewers? Or should the journalists be shifted to new assignments to = lessen the appearance their motives might be divided? Heading into the presidential election year, the answers to those = questions have been markedly different for at least four journalists: began a new assignment as a columnist for the newspaper’s opinion and = editorial pages after his bosses banned him from writing news stories = about the presidential race. The Times was seeking to avoid the = appearance of a conflict: Brownstein is married to Eileen McMenamin, = chief spokeswoman for Sen. John McCain, a candidate for the = Republican nomination. witness in the recent trial of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis = “Scooter” Libby, says he hasn’t figured out exactly how to cope with = the fact that his wife, Mandy Grunwald, is a chief ad strategist in = Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic nomination. = Now Washington editor for Portfolio magazine, Cooper said he expects = to write about Clinton and “to acknowledge my wife works for = Hillary … at least on Hillary-centric stories.” analyst, said she would not write stories centering on McCain’s = campaign, because her husband, Russ Schriefer, is plotting media = strategy for McCain. When appearing on Fox, she said, she plans at = least occasional disclaimers to tell TV viewers she is married to a = McCain advisor. husband rejected overtures to join the campaign of former = Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential candidate. = Dan Senor, a former White House aide and once top spokesman for the = Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, opted to start a private = firm, partly so his wife would not face a conflict. Journalism critics say the public’s skepticism toward the media has = been heightened by recent events, particularly the Libby trial, which = revealed a cozy relationship between Washington journalists and their = sources. “I think at the minimum you should state the relationship in each = report, and then think about recusing yourself entirely,” said Joseph = Tuman, a professor of political communication at San Francisco State = University who has himself disclosed potential conflicts as a = television commentator. Tom Rosenstiel, a former Washington correspondent for Newsweek = magazine and The Times, said that in many cases, disclosure was not = enough. “You have the right to marry anyone you want, but you don’t have the = right to cover any beat you want,” said Rosenstiel, now director of = the Project for Excellence in Journalism. Though they agreed that they needed to address the doubts of a = skeptical public, the media-political couples said they got little, = if any, professional benefit from their marriages. All said they were = careful not to share trade secrets. “There is a lot of stuff she doesn’t tell me and a lot of stuff that = I don’t tell her,” Cooper said of Grunwald, the Clinton advisor. Easton of Fortune and Fox News agreed, saying that journalists and = their spouses zealously protected their reputations. “We all = understand there are things we just can’t share,” said Easton, a = former Times and Boston Globe journalist. Schriefer “has clients, and = he is responsible to them. And I am responsible to readers and = viewers and to my editors and producers. We both understand that.” Schriefer said the couple simply would rather talk about topics other = than politics, such as “the kids, our next vacation or what movie we = want to see.” He said they couldn’t really worry about “people who = believe in conspiracy theories. They can always find something to = complain about.” Still, Easton agreed in an interview that public disclosure of = potential conflicts was important. After speaking to The Times, she = made her first on-air comment about her husband’s job. “In full disclosure, my husband works for the McCain campaign,” she = said on the “Fox News Sunday” round table, “so take what I say with a = grain of salt.” Official Washington is a small world, where elected officials, = political operatives, lobbyists and journalists fraternize and = sometimes become intimate. Among the pairings that once spanned the media-government boundary: = NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell and former Federal Reserve = Chairman Alan Greenspan; and former New York Times correspondent Todd = Purdum and Dee Dee Myers, previously chief spokeswoman for President = Clinton. Brownstein and Easton were once married to each other, and = the current spouse of each is now a McCain operative. The journalists all answered questions, if sometimes = unenthusiastically, about the collision of their personal and = political lives. Perhaps that’s because the attention the unions draw is unlikely to = be positive. In May 2005, for example, a blogger wrote that = Brownstein’s marriage to the McCain aide created an “obvious conflict = of interest.” A couple of weeks later, Brownstein acknowledged the marriage at the = bottom of his regular Washington Outlook column and added: “I am = confident that her new job will not affect my judgments, pro and con, = about McCain and his initiatives.” But Times editors decided that mere disclosure would not be enough = come the 2008 race, in which McCain is expected to be a prime = contender. Then-Editor Dean Baquet and Managing Editor Douglas Frantz = decided they would take a stronger stand =97 prohibiting Brownstein = from covering the 2008 presidential race. Frantz said in an interview that he was sure Brownstein could “set = aside his personal situation and write fairly…. But the appearance = of a conflict was too stark to consider any sort of role for him in = covering the presidential race.” The ban did not draw much public attention because Brownstein =97 a two- = time Pulitzer Prize finalist =97 was on leave writing a book. When he returned, the veteran commentator, who also appears on CNN, = had hoped to at least write about the Democratic contenders. “I saw = the concern they had,” the reporter said of his bosses, “but it = seemed to me to be a very high standard that they were setting.” Brownstein said he adjusted to the idea of focusing on Congress and = President Bush =97 and sitting on the sidelines after covering six = straight presidential elections. But his role in news coverage became = moot late last month, when Times Publisher David Hiller announced = that Brownstein would write a weekly political column and other = pieces for the paper’s op-ed operation. Andres Martinez, editor of The Times’ opinion pages, said in a = statement that he was “thrilled” to have Brownstein on his staff. But = he added in an interview that the reassignment did not completely = extinguish the conflict issue. Martinez plans to have other writers take on the bulk of commentary = focused on McCain. Brownstein will be able to write columns in which = the senator is less central, Martinez said. In those cases, he said, = “we will err on the side of full disclosure” of Brownstein’s marriage.