Should Journalists Reveal Their Voting Records?? (1 Viewer)

[Mr. Blue Sky]

Watching "Morning Joe" on MSNBC this morning... Notorious rightie Scarborough thinks journalists should be required to reveal their voting records, and one of his guests- I don't know his name- agreed, saying that "objectivity is a myth." This is an intriguing idea, IMO-- but I'm not sure if it would fly, or if it would be workable...

 

[cruize]

No one pays attention to how their favorite/partisan politician votes. Why would they care about how a "journalist" votes?

 

[Saint by the Bay]

90% of the time I can tell you a journalists voting record just by watching / reading / listening to them. Biases are easy to spot, people just need to learn to discern fact from opinion.

In the age of the "new" media options laziness is the only reason to be poorly informed or manipulated. Too many people purposely only absorb media sources they agree with and there's nothing you can do about people that want to be led somewhere.

 

[Rickboy]

Why bother? It takes about 10 seconds to figure on your own.

 

[rob021275]

Absolutely not.

If you rely on one journalist's "opinion" (even if there is an agenda in a non-op-ed piece) and not a broad spectrum of ideas and facts to make up your mind, you deserve to be led astray.

Plus, where would it end? What's next? Politicians (not public, the voting ones)? Executives? Doctors? Ditch Diggers?

Now, this is what needs to happen: No more party labels in the voting booth. If you aren't informed about the candidates enough to know who has what postition, you shouldn't be able to just throw the switch for all "R"s or all "D"s.

I'd be 100% for "fill in the blank" ballots (i.e.: No multiple choice) for the same reason, but that'll never happen.

 

[DadsDream]

What an utterly ridiculous notion.

Although some may consider certain journalists to be sub-human, they're still citizens and the privacy of the act of voting is sacrosanct...even for journalists...lawyers...congressmen...presidents...etc...

 

[RebSaint]

What an utterly ridiculous notion.

Although some may consider certain journalists to be sub-human, they're still citizens and the privacy of the act of voting is sacrosanct...even for journalists...lawyers...congressmen...presidents...etc...

It certainly was my impression when I read the OP. I think forcing journalists, or anybody for that matter to disclose what's considered to be private information, only to be disclosed by the voter himself may run into constitutional problems vis a vis privacy.

 

[Shockmo]

Just listen to their first two sentences and you'll know which way they lean....it's not a big deal if you have a brain.

By the way, Hannity voted Republican in the last election .....STOP THE PRESSES !!!!!

 

[JimEverett]

Hannity is not a journalist - his an op-ed guy who has a tv show.
I think it is hard to spot bias in a good journalist.

What journalists need is an oversight body - a professional organization that polices its members. That way you may be able to avoid, to some extent, the lax journalism during the run up to the Iraq war.

 

[Shockmo]

Hannity is not a journalist - his an op-ed guy who has a tv show.
I think it is hard to spot bias in a good journalist.

What journalists need is an oversight body - a professional organization that polices its members. That way you may be able to avoid, to some extent, the lax journalism during the run up to the Iraq war.

Good luck with that.