Nov. 4, 2010
On the days leading up to the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Keep Fear Alive” on the
National Mall in Washington, D.C., the Internet and media outlets were buzzing with
anticipation. The rally, which was being thrown on Oct. 31 by Jon Stewart, host of “The Daily
Show,” and Steven Colbert, host of “The Colbert Report,” was a mystery: no one knew its
schedule, content or true purpose.
Nevertheless, several news organizations, including National Public Radio, The Washington Post and The New York Times, sent out memos to their employees with specific instructions regarding the rally, according to the Miami Herald. NPR forbade its journalists from attending it, the Post instructed its employees to refrain from “participating” in it and the Times told its reporters to avoid doing anything that might compromise their neutrality.
The Huffington Post added other organizations that placed rally restrictions on their
employees to the Herald’s list. The Wall Street Journal told its employees to “exercise good
judgment,” NBC News said employees with editorial roles were not allowed to participate in
partisan events, CBS News said its employees don’t participate in any political activity, CNN
said its employees are prohibited from participating in political events or donating money for political means, and the Associated Press said its reporters know they are not allowed to attend this specific rally.
During a select few interviews, Stewart had only hinted at what the rally would encompass, but did emphasize that the rally was nonpartisan.
“This is for the people who are too busy, who have jobs and lives, and are tired of their
reflection in the media as being a divided country and a country that is ideological and conflicted and fighting,” Stewart told CNN’s Larry King. “We are using the rally format to do the same thing we do with our shows,” he said. “It’s just using the rally through a satirical format.”
Both Stewart and Colbert’s shows are political satire. Stewart acts as a news anchor who
points out political gaffes conducted by both the media and politicians. Colbert, on the other
hand, presents the news while acting as a right-wing, in-your-face political pundit.
NPR received the most backlash from other media outlets and listeners for its no-rally
rule. The organization’s ombudsman, Alicia Shepard, wrote a post on the radio station’s Web
site on Oct. 15 (almost two weeks before the rally) to explain its decision.
First, NPR reporters who were actually covering the rally were allowed to attend it.
Second, this decision was simply an adherence to NPR’s Ethics Code that was implemented in 2004, she said. As the memo explained, the code says that “NPR journalists may not participate in [political] marches and rallies involving causes or issues that NPR covers…”
Shepard said the reason why a specific memo was issued for this particular rally was
because, “staffers were asking whether a rally hosted by comedians is considered political.” NPR had determined the rally was political, she added.
Stewart told King that NPR’s decision was surprising and based on incorrect assumptions.
“I find it interesting that you would forbid people from going to something that even we
don’t know what it is,” Stewart said. “They are guessing it’s political. They are guessing wrong, my friend.”
Edward Wasserman at The Miami Herald said the Post explained participation in the
rally as any action that put a reporter “in a position that could be construed as supporting (or
opposing) that cause. That means no t-shirts, buttons, marching, chanting, etc.”
In response to the Post’s decision, The Washington City Paper, a Washington D.C. weekly newspaper, posted a fake staff memo regarding the rally.
Interestingly, the actual rally turned into an attack more so on the media than on a
particular political party.
“The country’s 24-hour-politico-pundit-perpetual-panic conflictinator did not cause our
problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder,” Stewart told the crowd. “The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker.”
Colbert even poked fun at all the media organizations who forbade their journalists from
attending or participating in the rally. He awarded the news media a “medal for fear,” CBS News reported.
Overall, the rally consisted of musical acts and other performers, including Stewart and
Colbert, who were conveying a message that hate, intolerance, fear and a lack of understanding was pervading American society through the media and should be stopped.
ANALYSIS
Following the various news organizations’ announcements regarding the rally, blogs and
editorials across the Internet lit up with discussions about the media ethics of the event.
One question that arose from this situation is can news organizations really tell their employees what they politically can and cannot do outside of the workday?
However, the real media ethics issue is whether attending this specific rally creates a conflict of interest for journalists or compromises their impartiality.
In general, the Society of Professional Journalist’s Code of Ethics (along with other media ethics’ codes) addresses conflicts of interest and impartiality, but it does not go into specific details. It does not, unsurprisingly, explicitly say if pseudo-political rallies developed by fake pundits violate journalistic ethics and values.
Traditionally, journalists have deemed it unethical to openly participate in political activities or indicate their political leanings. Such activity could open a gateway to a conflict of interest or other breach of loyalty.
For example, if a moderate or independent reader knows that a reporter is Republican, the reader may question the reporter’s coverage of political issues or the reporter’s loyalty to him or her as an independent. As the textbook explains, journalists should abstain from any actions or events that may result in “real, perceived or potential conflicts of interest.”
While Stewart and Colbert are neither political candidates nor pushing a particular
political agenda, the public still sees them as overtly liberal figures who discuss exclusively
political issues. Even though Stewart insisted that the rally was not political or partisan, the fact of the matter remains that most of the general public still considered the rally to be at least somewhat political. Furthermore, since most of the two comedians’ followers are usually liberal, most people would probably assume that the rally’s participants were also liberal.
In this situation, all journalists potentially joining the rally have a loyalty to the public
(their readers, viewers and listeners), to their news organization, to their profession and to
themselves.
Technically, a reporter who participated in the rally may not be breaking a loyalty to a stakeholder outright. He or she is not writing a story about the event and is not attending the
event with the intention of favoring Stewart and Colbert over the American public. However,
by creating the impression that he or she is a liberal or a supporter of the ideas that the two
comedians are advocating, the reporter could make it appear as though there is a potential
conflict of interest. For an example, an observer may think the reporter’s political beliefs may infiltrate his coverage of political issues, or his support of the idea that cable networks are destroying America may infiltrate his coverage of issues relating to those networks.
Impartiality is one of the many ways that journalists can recognize and adhere to loyalty to the public, their employers and their profession.
The news organizations were correct in restricting their reporters from attending or participating in the rally. Although the organizations knew little about the content of the rally, it was safe to assume that it would have some sort of political connotation, whether Stewart and Colbert wanted it to or not. Rallies, for the most part, typically deal with at least some sort of political issue. Clearly, the media was being cautious and trying to eliminate even the slightest chance for the public to question its impartiality.
The news organizations were valuing their loyalty to the public and to their profession, and were urging their journalists to place that value higher than their own curiosity about the rally.
Although NPR’s instructions to its employees seem extreme, its decision was also ethically correct. Generally, people show up to a rally to support a cause. People who oppose a rally probably are not going to attend it. Thus, even if reporters are not actively participating by holding signs or shouting things, their presence indicates at least some support of the rally’s political message.
The Rally to Restore Sanity was broadcast live on both Comedy Central and C-SPAN. If a reporter was curious about what was happening and wanted to see it first-hand, he or she could easily watch the broadcast and avoid raising questions about his loyalty or giving allusions to possible conflicts of interests.
On a side note, attending this rally – which was propagating the idea that the media is guilty of rampant extremism and impartiality – would probably compromise a journalist’s loyalty to his or her profession. A journalist should fight against such a notion and work hard to show the public that their news organization and their profession as a whole strives for nonpartisanship and fair reporting.
So, news outlets were ethically right in restricting their employees from attending the
Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. The rally had an aura of politics and thereby potentially
jeopardized journalists’ appearance as unbiased sources of information, which could have further jeopardized their appearance of loyalty to their multiple stakeholders.
– By Aisha Mahmood