PressEthic

On Monday morning of this week, before the live shots of the weatherman in Times Square but right after footage of the sad state of suddenly stray dogs in New Orleans, Charlie Gibson had a choice to make. Charlie, if you don't know, works a long day at ABC News. Every morning, he's on the air at 7 to co-host Good Morning America. Every evening, he's anchoring World News Tonight. In every way, he is ABC News.

On this particular Monday, September 12, big things were afoot in the world. New Orleans was still under water. John Roberts was under the bright lights of Senate investigations. The President would be in New York City for a U.N. meeting towards the end of the week.

But ABC, a Disney owned company, had more pressing company news to report. Disney Hong Kong had just opened its doors. Disney was putting out press releases about how it used fung shui to design the park, and it's own ABC reporter stood live on the scene waiting to breathlessly report on how a company built on the image of a talking mouse was honoring ancient Chinese customs.

Mr. Charlie Gibson heard that this story was coming up, and, with just the right tone of sarcasm in his voice, said, "I wonder why we're running that story."

And for that, Charlie deserves a pat on the back. ABC's teaser story ran no disclaimers that the network was part of the same company as Disney. It just beamed the pretty pictures into millions of American households without having to pay a cent in advertising.

In a situation like this one, where the network will clearly present its parent company's product in a favorable light, ABC has a duty to its viewers to state that Disney and ABC are one and the same.

When commercial ties between editorial output and company products are not made plain to the average viewer, journalists have a responsibility to question their own coverage. Bias in favor of the viewer is an acceptable one in this profession.