PressEthic

Is it possible for a journalist to comment on controversial issues outside of their journalistic arena and still maintain their credibility? This week, a bay area news anchor's future was compromised when he went on his radio talk show and talked about the controversial topic of a gay man and lesbian woman's child. An article in Inside Bay Area covers it:

Earlier this week, Pete Wilson, a local TV news anchor and radio host, said before launching into a controversial topic on his afternoon radio program on KGO Newstalk 810, "I know it's going to get me into trouble in terms of political correctness, but I don't care."

Wilson may care a little more now, given the ruckus raised by his ensuing remarks over the decision by a gay San Francisco supervisor and his friend, a lesbian, to bear and raise a child together. The parents, Supervisor Bevan Dufty and Rebecca Goldfader, aren't in a romantic relationship.

The article quotes Kelly McBride from Poynter Institute:

"And there's reason for the audience to doubt our credibility and our ability to be fair and neutral if individual journalists are revealing strongly held personal opinions in a public forum," McBride said.

While in this instance, I can see how Wilson would receive backlash; he did offend a large portion of the San Francisco community. However, Should he have the added pressure and censorship of his opinions in an arena where it is his job to put forth his opinions? Even though he was "off the clock," the public still expected the same level of truth and fairness in other arenas of his life.

On the one hand, journalists are not fully trusted by the public, but, on the other hand, are expected to be perfect individuals outside of their journalist obligations. It's a catch 22.

I think this is a trap that many journalists fall into. As a result of the added pressure of securing one's reputation, many journalists lose their jobs after voicing their opinions in the only places they are allowed to. This happened to Bernard Goldberg with his Wall Street Journal op-ed. Many journalists with political blogs also may fall into this trap.

"And there's reason for the audience to doubt our credibility and our ability to be fair and neutral if individual journalists are revealing strongly held personal opinions in a public forum," McBride said.

While I am certainly not condoning what Wilson said, shouldn't journalists' opinions have more of a positive weight than a negative one? Kevin Keeshan said:

"This is a market that puts great weight on news anchors who are smart, who are well-read and who have a broad range of understanding of how the world works," Keeshan emphasized.

Journalists have to be informed about a number of issues going on in the world, according to the job description. Wouldn't this imply that they would probably have a more informed opinion about these things if they are reporting on them firsthand?

I would think so, but unfortunately, this is not always the case. In addition, knowing how journalists personally feel about issues they are reporting on can make it easier for readers to find bias. To be honest, I wish this wasn't so, but the added pressure is always going to be there. The reality is, journalists' right to free speech will always be impeded by the constant scrutiny by the public.