This Should Scare You

If this doesn't scare you, it should.

There used to be a time when the guy who covered health at the local TV station could quietly contribute a few bucks to his preferred choice for governor. But now that everything has a paper trail that leads to a newscast or a blog, "Give 'Til It Hurts" has new meaning.

So you'd think journalists, and especially their bosses, would tighten things up. Not so. Not at all.

That local TV reporter's preferred choice for governor might be the one proposing a major health initiative that could in some way benefit the reporter, giving the public even more reason to be skeptical of journalists. And again, this is just a local TV example.

What about those who work at cable mainstays CNN and MSNBC, as well as the networks? Or how about the Wall Street Journal or New York Times? There's a handful of those named in this story. How many other names aren't included?

Sure, journalists are human, and like everyone else they have opinions. Jerry Springer used to do a little commentary on the day's big story at the end of his early 1990s newscasts at Cincinnati's WLWT-TV. Even some sports guys used to do an occasional 60-second opinion piece after the scores and highlights. Again, local TV -- no harm, no foul.

Because journalists are closer than the public to the big stories they cover, they're likely to have an even more informed take on issues and candidates. But I remember learning what the term "conflict of interest" meant back when I was 19, and it's a hard rule to forget about.

So to make things easy, to remove any gray area, to help keep some separation between journalism and politics and also to help keep them both a little more honest, newspapers and broadcasters need to implement an across-the-board prohibition of campaign donations by their employees. It really is that easy.

Do You Agree?