Even as a longtime print guy — someone who earned his living writing for newspapers for more than three decades — I remain quite respectful of broadcast journalists and their craft.
I say that even as broadcast journalism is morphing into something few of us barely recognize from the days when we broke into journalism three, four, five decades ago.
The cable and broadcast news networks now are full of “contributors,” pundits who often come to their new calling from the partisan political world.
An online report brings to light a fascinating and troubling trend in the TV coverage of the presidential campaign. It is the absence of full disclosure by political pundits to the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Viewers are listening to “contributors” such as, Stephanie Cutter, say that Hillary Clinton has done “nothing wrong” in her presidential campaign. They do not hear Cutter — or her employers at CNN — reveal that she has financial ties to the Clinton campaign.
CNN recently hired former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a “contributor.” It didn’t reveal that Lewandowski was still getting paid by the Trump campaign even after he was let go as its campaign manager.
The broadcast and cable news outlets are full of these contributors, though, who have some form of financial connection to Clinton.
Honestly, I am troubled in the first place by all these political hacks who find themselves offering analysis on the state of the campaign. My own preference would be for the networks to rely more on think tank types, journalists who make their living offering such analysis and perhaps academics.
Sure, they need to be “telegenic” and be able to present themselves and their views in a cogent and understandable manner.
Does any of this pro-Clinton slant — and the financial connections to the candidate herself — doom or candidacy? Should it? No to questions.
Consumers of news and analysis, though, would be served far better if the contributors revealed their own financial interest in the candidate they are praising.
