Despite the recent gaffe and lack of judgment regarding Dan Rather’s timely demise, examples of journalism gone awry continue to pour in. Although in these new cases it isn’t television under fire but rather print and online journalism, the disregard for commonly accepted ethical principles is astounding. And, for balance’s sake, one case regards the left, and one the right. Everyone should be both equally smug and angered — a first, perhaps.
Armstrong Williams, a Townhall.com columnist, ran a paid advertisement for the Department of Education regarding No Child Left Behind on his television show in 2003. At the same time, he was also one of that bill’s strongest advocates. While many may look and find reason to question the ethics of such an action, it would seem as though this infraction was committed without malice. It had been no secret since long before this mistake that Armstrong Williams supported conservative policies, and to think that Mr. Williams would have to be bought by the Bush administration is conspiracy-theory fodder at its worst.
However, the fact that he may have not been expressly bribed by the Department of Education does not exonerate his moral culpability. Almost immediately after this story broke, Mr. Williams’ column with Tribune Media was cancelled, and his image irrevocably tarnished. Likely to be seen as little more than a pariah, his career is, essentially, over.
The second example of poor journalism comes from the latest frontier of media: the blog. Also back in 2003, Zephyr Teachout, Howard Dean’s Director of Online Organizing during his failed presidential campaign, along with other members of Dean’s staff, including his campaign manager Joe Trippi, paid prominent liberal bloggers to support Dean over the other candidates during the primary. Indeed, Teachout’s blog, “Zonkette” (which, by the way, is a shoddy rip-off of an actually talented liberal blogger Wonkette, otherwise known as Ana Marie Cox) not only freely admits to seeking the support of these bloggers through payment, but it details the debate among the campaign as the campaign staffers tried to “figure out which blog was more important to get for influence in the blogosphere: DailyKos or MyDD.” Eventually, they decided to pay them both, for different purposes, as ‘consultants’ for their campaign. DailyKos seemed to be on track to support another candidate, but luckily they got him in time.
Unluckily for them, their ‘disclosure’ of this contract was missed by, well, everyone. And so, just as it was wrong for Mr. Williams to accept payment from a government agency while advocating its policy, it too was wrong of both the Dean campaign staffers to pay bloggers and for the bloggers to accept such payment. Both violate the ethical principles upon which any sort of trust must be based, and everyone involved in both cases is deserving of their lost credibility.
But it is particularly disturbing when Ms. Teachout not only gives the narrative of what took place, but she begins to argue how it was not unethical.
“You may think it’s a technical answer, but I think its (sic) an important one, and its one on which Trippi and I completely agree: its silly to talk about ethics and blogging in those days, it was all new!”
And liberals wonder why the Democrats aren’t viewed as the party of “moral values.”
This excuse reeks of moral relativism, indicative of everything that is wrong with the left in this country today. It isn’t enough for them to simply admit the error in their judgment and apologize for being careless. No, for Ms. Teachout, the accepted ethics of human behavior that have sustained our democratic way of life for a quarter of a millennium don’t apply to the wild and wonderful new world of the Internet. The rules hadn’t been written yet for this medium, even though they had for every other comparable medium of communication.
When you view the world as one in which humanity has no foundation upon which to build ethical rules for acceptable and unacceptable action, it is easy to defend the indefensible in the name of convenience.
The Armstrong Williams story broke slightly before the “blogola” story did, and as a defender of Bush’s policy in the past, I could not help but feel viscerally angered that the Department of Education and a journalist for whom I had a great deal of respect would act so recklessly. Even as the blog story developed, I thought it to be the lesser offense — political campaigns are not governmental bodies, and the standards ought to be different. But looking at Zephyr Teachout’s defense of her actions side by side with Armstrong William’s apology, my anger has abated. Instead, it is replaced with solemn disgust and smug delight toward those of her ilk. For today, I am proud to enjoy the second inauguration of George W. Bush, laughing as the morally bankrupt ex-Deaniacs pout.
Zach Stern ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science.
