On Monday, CNN announced it would be severing ties with Donna Brazile for furnishing Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta with questions that would be asked in one of the primary debates. The emails, which were provided by a WikiLeaks email dump, reveal that Brazile sent Podesta emails describing almost verbatim some of the questions Clinton would receive. While Brazile was initially hired by CNN specifically to be a Democratic strategist, her actions were, as her CNN colleague Jake Tapper put it, “journalistically horrifying.”
However outrageous and unethical Brazile’s actions were, they are nothing new to an election that has been plagued by partisan commentators who are either paid generously by or have close connections to their respective campaigns.
These so-called commentators blur the line between media and politics and completely disregard the line between honesty and deceit. Rather than remain loyal to the essential journalistic principle of truth, they are loyal to the candidates who pay them or provide them with opportunities for political mobility.
This, of course, is not a practice unique to the Clinton campaign. After Corey Lewandowski was fired as chairman of the Trump campaign, he was hired almost immediately by CNN as a political contributor while also receiving severance pay from the Trump campaign. In addition, Lewandowski has remained subject to a nondisclosure agreement forbidding him “from making disparaging or revealing remarks about the candidate.”
Similarly, Fox News anchor Sean Hannity makes no secret of his loyalty to Donald Trump while at the same time hosting a political TV program. To give him some credit, he admits he “never claimed to be a journalist.” Tuesday, however, Hannity shared what later proved to be a fake story about how Michelle Obama deleted her tweets endorsing Hillary Clinton, a possible sign that the Obamas were distancing themselves from the candidate. If he claims not to be a journalist, why does he attempt to assume that role and in an ethically negligent way?
The bottom line is, when you watch what appears to be a news program or a debate between two people who hold different political views and represent different political camps, keep in mind that what you are actually watching is just a verbal war between two candidates who are often being paid hundreds of thousands — or even millions — of dollars to defend their candidate unwaveringly.
As Jack Shafer pointed out in a Politico op-ed, “By dividing their partisan contributors between Republicans and Democrats, TV creates the illusion of impartiality and inclusion.”
This model of “news” TV is an insult to journalism and an insult to viewers, who are led to believe that what they are seeing is a fair debate on substantive policy issues. It simply isn’t.
Instead, news networks should hire journalists, such as Dana Bash and Megyn Kelly, whose only loyalty is to the truth and who are beholden to no individual or party. Perhaps it is also the responsibility of the Federal Election Commission to curb this blatantly unethical campaign practice by at least preventing full-time political contributors from being paid by campaigns.
If not, the integrity of journalism will continue to decline, and honesty will continue to be compromised by the forces of opportunism and wealth.
Julian Fleischman is a UF political science and telecommunication senior. His column appears on Fridays.
