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Monday, Feb. 18, 2013 | 2 a.m.
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The spectacle of TV personality Geraldo Rivera using his soapbox with Fox News to test-market a possible run for the U.S. Senate has, not surprisingly, caused some real journalists to cough up hairballs.
“If an on-air person makes any pretense about being a journalist, then obviously he should not be using his station or network to promote his candidacy,” Marvin Kalb, former NBC News stalwart and a founder of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, told Media Matters. “He should immediately pull himself/herself off the air, then announce his candidacy and run.”
Or, as Sonny Albarado, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, put it, “Running for public office and being a journalist are incompatible.”
Now, I may be doing Geraldo a disservice, but to me he has always been a vaguely clownish self-promoter, and it’s hard for me to condemn him for betraying journalistic principle when I never thought he was a journalist. He can hardly have corrupted a professionalism he didn’t profess, and in that respect there’s no point in defrocking him, since he was never ordained.
That doesn’t, however, mean what he’s doing now is OK. But to me, the sin isn’t his; it’s Fox News’. Here I agree with David Zurawik, the Baltimore Sun’s TV critic, who said it’s “really wrong that Fox allows itself to play this political role.”
The wrongdoing doesn’t have to do with Geraldo’s personal failure to uphold some kind of journalistic neutrality. It lies in Fox News’ institutional failure to accept some responsibility for encouraging fairness in the political system.
Fox is so widely recognized for the conservative tilt of its news and commentary that assailing its political judgment might seem superfluous. But partisanship is one thing. It doesn’t license Fox to do whatever it likes by unleashing its marquee talent to misuse their positions for personal gain — while denying anything like a reasonable say to their critics, let alone their adversaries.
Geraldo’s chutzpah is legendary, and he gives every indication now that he’ll exploit his platform to the fullest. On his Fox radio show Jan. 31, after he announced he was “truly contemplating” a campaign for a New Jersey Senate seat, he invited Fox Business Network host Andrew Napolitano to declare his support.
“Absolutely,” Napolitano replied. “To help you get that job because you are an understander — a rare understander — of the nature of human freedom and the role of government in our lives. I would welcome this as a great gift at this stage in my life that I could call you senator.”
A day after that moist display of on-air sycophancy, Geraldo was interviewed by Fox host Laura Ingraham on “The O’Reilly Factor,” cable TV’s top-rated program. There he got down into the campaign weeds. He outlined his hybrid position on gun violence (supporting both universal background checks and more New York-style stop-and-frisk policing), and he suggested letting profit-seeking companies whose owners oppose birth control avoid providing free contraception to employees, as the Obama reforms require.
“Well, Geraldo, I’m listening to you,” Ingraham said. “You’re sounding like you are putting together policy papers almost like a future senator.”
“Move to Jersey,” Geraldo suggested.
Obviously, this is electioneering, and the free feedback he solicits from viewers and potential donors amounts to a big-bucks campaign contribution from Fox.
But the network’s position has been: “Geraldo would have to step aside as soon as he made a formal decision, and we’re continuing to monitor the situation.”
This isn’t new for Fox. The network has a record of putting GOP aspirants on the air and on the payroll, including two men who later ran for the presidential nomination in 2012, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich; Ohio Gov. John Kasich (a Fox News presence for nine years); and current or former candidates in Virginia, Mississippi and Massachusetts.
From a commercial perspective, that record is understandable. These are seasoned, knowledgeable on-screen talents who would draw viewers if they were guests, let alone hosts.
But this practice constitutes a form of political patronage that raises the barriers to entry for independent outsiders and tilts the table against known rivals who have never gotten soapboxes, or paychecks, of comparable value.
It subverts the rough and tumble of honest adversarialism, and its most enduring legacy is, I’m afraid, to create a wing of the political class that is reliably beholden to Fox News.
Edward Wasserman is Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University. He wrote this column for the Miami Herald.
If you think this is a conflict then you must agree that government employees are really a conflict when they hold or run for office.
I opine that the writer would have a different view if Mr. Rivera was a democrat. It appears that both Senate seats will be available in New Jersey: Lautenberg and Menendez. Lautenberg by volunteer retirement and Menendez by legally forced retirement. Cory Booker, a Democrat, has expressed interest in running for Lautenberg's and likely will win. That leaves the other and Rivera is a formidable Republican candidate for it.
CarmineD
Edward Wasserman was making the point, Foxnews is bias and crossing the line of ethical reporting and access in an attempt to tilt the political landscape by using the power of Foxnews radio, cable and TV broadcast to selected individuals.
Now other major broadcaster soils the airwaves as Fox has done and continues to do so today. Fox is slowly losing their hold on the viewers who tune in to listen and watch Fox broadcast. Many, if not a majority, have been enlighten after the November 6, 2012 election. The lies and the inaccurate information Fox and staff spewed out to the America Public was on full display November 6, 2012.
ward Wasserman was making the point, Foxnews is bias and crossing the line of ethical reporting and access in an attempt to tilt the political landscape by using the power of Foxnews radio, cable and TV broadcast to selected individuals.
Now other major broadcaster soils the airwaves as Fox has done and continues to do so today.
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You're obviously not watching MSNBC, then -- they're no better than Fox when it comes to this.
@happyleper,
Mr. Wasserman is pointing access and ethical reporting.
Foxnew has continually reported inaccurate information. MSNBC commentators, or employees, are not running for State or Federal office. Your comparison does not fit.
Wasserman is a leftist loon. Doesn't matter what he says.
BTW, Jerry Rivers aint a Republican, certainly he's not conservative.
Dennis Miller for President!
This could be our revenge for the democrats stealing a Senate seat for Al Franken. Geraldo can't be more ridiculous than the comedian from Minnesota.
@happyleper,
Mr. Wasserman is pointing access and ethical reporting.
Foxnew has continually reported inaccurate information. MSNBC commentators, or employees, are not running for State or Federal office. Your comparison does not fit.
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You're the one accusing Fox News of bias, not me. The comparison most certainly does fit, if you actually read what you wrote in the first place.
Is non-Fox media aware there is now a "purple stars" medal? Obama was giving them out the other day.
@happyleper,
(just to be clear, when referring to Foxnews this applies to the Foxnew cable channel and Fox Radio)
What your saying does not make sense. Foxnew is clearly bias in their reporting. Blatantly bias! Inaccurate with selected stories throughout Fox featured shows. If what your saying is MSNBC has the same ethical short comings and inaccurate reporting as Foxnews you are truly living in another reality. It's called the Bubble. America watched this story in full display on the night of November 6, 2012 as shown on Foxnew cable channel.
There is a reality about the Bubble. When your in the bubble, you cannot hear or see anything outside the Bubble. You can only receive information from the Bubble Master (Foxnews). They determined your reality.
There are other sources for information. Accurate and information. Foxnews is not a source of good information or ethical reporting.
Longtime,
MSNBC is the worst station on TV other than Al Gore's Al Jazeera Network. Rachel Madcow is a bomb throwing loon. Mathews gets a tingle every time Obama talks. Oh yeah, they're credible.
You are comparing grenades to pomagranites when you compare Fox to MSNBC. Anybody who uses one news source is in trouble. Any source.
Mathews was just taken off suicide watch after Madow, The Rev and Odonnel were invited to the WH after the election and he wasn't.
Why not Rivera , he's no different from the other self indulgent egotistical idiots in there now.
Or we could stop pretending that major media is unbiased. Some of the big print and electronic media companies attempt to keep news and editorial separate. Most do a reasonable job but bias is present everywhere so it's pretty much unavoidable. Let Rivera do what he will and flay him with ads with clips from his life as an entertainment buffoon.
@happyleper,
(just to be clear, when referring to Foxnews this applies to the Foxnew cable channel and Fox Radio)
What your saying does not make sense. Foxnew is clearly bias in their reporting.
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What I am saying is that MSNBC is no better with respect to their bias than is Fox News. Everything else you bring up at this point is merely your attempt to move the goal posts.
How did he ever get over the embarrassment of his live program of the opening of Al Capone's vault where nothing was found but some empty bottles?
@happyleper,
You are correct. MSNBC is democrat leaning station. MSNBC is the Left, Foxnews is the Right.
The discussion is about access and ethics. Foxnwews has people on their payroll active in state and national politics. Geraldo Rivera is an employee of Fox. Where on MSNBC is an employee or commentator running for state or national office? Even though Rivera has not officially announced his is running, he is using Fox as a spring board.
Ethics, Fox is in very short supply, if they had any at all.
The discussion is about access and ethics. Foxnwews has people on their payroll active in state and national politics. Geraldo Rivera is an employee of Fox. Where on MSNBC is an employee or commentator running for state or national office? Even though Rivera has not officially announced his is running, he is using Fox as a spring board.
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Chris Matthews was openly contemplating running for US Senate back in late 2008:
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/26/...
I'm sure that this will be okay in your eyes (and the eyes of the usual partisan hacks here), though, because he didn't actually announce a candidacy or run.