Monday, February 27, 2012

Journalism wanted: why are sitting politicians allowed editorial platforms in commercial media?

With the news that the Ford brothers have a radio show, I'm reminded of something I meant to blog but never got around to months ago when Josh Matlow (my city councillor) had a newspaper column and, later, a radio show:

Why are sitting politicians allowed to write newspaper columns and host media shows? My gut feeling is that it should be some kind of conflict of interest, but I can't quite explain why I think it should be. The newspaper column seems less objectionable to me because they have more control over the topic and can keep it from straying into unethical areas, but again this is purely a gut feeling.

If they get paid by the media outlet (I don't know if they do or not - I asked Josh Matlow but haven't received an answer yet) [Update March 3: I have received a response saying he did neither received payment for the show nor paid for the airtime], then it seems like it would be a conflict of interest for a politician to be on a media outlet's payroll, just like it would be a conflict of interest for a sitting politician to be on any outside body's payroll. It also seems kind of wrong that a politician would promote a media outlet (which they will end up doing in the course of the completely reasonable act of telling their twitter followers "Hey, I'll be on the radio in this place and time"), but they'd be doing the same thing if they were the interviewee instead of the host and that doesn't seem as wrong to me. There's also the question of the advertisers for the radio show. What if one of the advertisers is something that it's inappropriate for a politician to be endorsing?

Of course, despite my gut feeling that this is wrong, it's probably perfectly permissible. It's so high-profile that if it were wrong, someone authoritative would have stopped it, or at least loudly announced it.

So I'd like to see someone write an article explaining to us ordinary citizens why sitting politicians are allowed the additional platform of hosting radio shows and writing newspaper columns. Since journalists for reputable news outlets would be trained in media ethics they already know the answer to this question, so it's an easy article, little research needed, just type it up and you'll have done a public service.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's the other way around - they are paying for the time slot (as did Matlow). This is very common for the weekend slots on the radio.

impudent strumpet said...

Really! I had no idea that was even an option. Is there some kind of disclaimer, like with infomercials on TV? Do you know if the paying for space thing would also have applied to Matlow's newspaper column?

Still in the my-gut-says-but-I-can't-justify-it vein, this still seems wrongish to me (although it seems more wrong to pay for a newspaper column if that were the case). Politicians paying money to commercial media outlets in exchange for publicity seems questionable, especially since it seems to be outside the scope of campaign advertising. I'm also wondering that that means for the relationship between the politician and the radio station's advertisers. (Politician or not, would the host get some money from the ads? Or does the radio station gets money both from the ads and from the host?)

Anonymous said...

Councillor Matlow sent you a message about this directly. He didn't pay for hosting his show & also did not accept payment. He simply enjoyed doing it.

impudent strumpet said...

I have received that message, thank you for answering. Updated the post to reflect it.