Journalists denied access to Twitter page

Last February, Texas Governor Rick Perry made a few headlines in an effort to avoid them. Specifically, Perry was found to have blocked a number of Texan media members from accessing his Twitter account (you can read the original article here). DallasNews.com's Tom Benning reported being denied following access after trying to subscribe to @GovernorPerry. At least two other journalists, Bud Kennedy and Scott Braddock, were singled out by Perry and blocked.

Surprisingly, even after Perry was called out on his behavior, Poynter.org reported on Monday that Perry still blocks reporters from viewing his account. Why would this be news? Now that Perry is running for GOP nomination, journalists are even more curious to know why members of the press are not allowed to subscribe to his account.

But no worries, correspondents: nine minutes after Steve Myers reported on Poynter, Yahel Carmon created @PerryUnblocked by putting the RSS feed for @GovernorPerry into Yahoo Pipes, and flowing that in to Twitterfeed.

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Suspended For Civic Engagment?

A top story in the headlines is the suspension and reinstatement of MSNBC host Kieth Olbermann for giving monetary donations to Democratic political candidates.

Now the question is, is it against journalistic ethics for a journalist to support one political candidate over the other?

MSNBC is a clearly left-leaning institution, though as a whole it claims to remain mainly unbiased. Kieth Olbermann is also clearly a supporter of the Democratic party.

However, Olbermann is also a journalist--and a popular one at that. Thousands of people tune into his commentaries on issues or current political proceedings.

Anyone that watches his show can clearly see that Olbermann is a Democrat supporter, so his monetary gifts shouldn't have been much of a surprise to any audience member. Therefore, is it fair that he was suspended for this act?

Some people are commenting that Olbermann should have been completely honest about giving money to the candidates from the start; but, are private citizens rightfully expected to show where their money is going?

The issue is not about whether or not Olbermann should support one candidate over another as a journalist. The issue is about whether or not a citizen in the public eye should be 1.) expected to engage in civic duties, and 2.) expected to disclose all political leanings to the public.

This can all go back to my previous blog about biases--if a person has a particular bias, he or she will present information through that bias.

Olbermann has a bias, and though he hadn't come out and said that he supported the Democratic party, his bias was still clear to the audience. The audience is able to take the information with the understanding that the information they were receiving from Olbermann came through that bias.

It shouldn't be necessary for a person like Olbermann, who is working for a clearly left-leaning company and presenting clearly left-leaning opinions, to publicly disclose his or her positions of civic involvement.

Everyone knows his bias, and every engaged citizen should be able to take information from him as it is through that bias without Olbermann needing to feed it to them.

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Politician to Jail to Broadcaster?

The New York Times reported that in Illinois, breaking the law seems to lead to a guaranteed opportunity as a political broadcaster. The city has three politicians that have been convicted of crimes from accepting bribes to corruption charges, done jail time, and now have their own shows as radio broadcasters.

While Chicago or Illinois is not the only place this happens, the city has numerous tainted politicians turned professional talkers.

Local television stations explain that they always recruit ex-politicians on election night, and they don’t differentiate the honest from the dishonest. It seems more important to have the insider awareness, and who better knows what is going on?

Listeners are also drawn to big politicians that have been brought down, convicted, and now they are out and have lots to say. Prior broadcasting or radio experience isn’t necessary.
While these individuals obviously aren’t trustworthy, maybe they are the best source to tell what really happens in the political world.

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