Management digs in deeper while still not explaining why off-duty reporters can’t attend and observe without participating. Will the next memo outline how much distance you have to keep from the crowd if you’re heading out for a carton of milk? And will the distance be measured in yards or meters?
Discover more from Media Nation
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
C.E. Stead
DK – an EXCELLENT question was raised on your original thread –
Since they are digging in further, any way to find out if this applies ONLY to liberal events?
C.E. Stead
DK – I see they did not warn reporters about Glenn Beck. So how did they ascertain Beck was ‘overtly political’?
BTW – does NPR have/observe a distinction between partisan and political? Because those tricky League of Women Voter events may become a problem.
Dan Kennedy
@C.E.: Point taken, but NPR’s real mistake here is in not recognizing the difference between participation and mere attendance. Jeff Jarvis has a good commentary on the situation here. What I find especially weird about this is that it comes not from some stodgy, hopeless old media dinosaur, but from NPR, among the most forward-looking news organizations we have.
C.E. Stead
DK – to me, being in media is all about words, and precise use of words. That is the strangest thing about this. Political/Partisan; Attend/Participate; Objective/Uninvolved.
As you know, I don’t have a problem with journalist participation, as I don’t think it humanly possible to be utterly objective, and I prefer knowing where a reporter is coming from. But this NPR stance is unsustainable at best.