Here's to furthering the distrust in journalism (Ethics)

The New York Times has received over 4,000 questions concerning the article published last week regarding Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Editors and reporters who worked with the story have attempted to answer a substantial amount of questions.

One question, asked by Debbie Collazo from Tucson, AZ, caught my attention: "Why did The New York Times strongly endorse Senator McCain to be the Republican Party nominee in January, if at the same time the paper was well aware of and continuing to investigate what it considered to be front-page, damaging, 'un-presidential' charges?"

Among the several concerns I have, the answer provided by Richard W. Stevenson, The New York Times political editor, caught me off guard.

According to Stevenson, "The short answer is that the news department of The Times and the editorial page are totally separate operations that do not consult or coordinate when it comes to news coverage and endorsements or other expressions of editorial opinion. We in the newsroom did not speak to anyone at the editorial page about the story we were working on about Senator McCain. They did not consult us about their deliberations over endorsements of the presidential candidates."

Stevenson continues on to explain that newspapers should not endorse presidential candidates, and he had not heard The New York Times was supporting candidates until he read about it in the paper.

Excuse me? First, I'm floored at how both sections do not communicated with one another, but this brings up an extremely ethical concern in journalism. According to Professor Steffen, newspapers have always endorsed candidates, but should newspapers be allowed to endorse political candidates?

Stevenson's response left me grappling with the issue of endorsing candidates, which had previously been discussed in class. At one end, I believe newspapers should not endorse presidential candidates. There continues to be distrust in journalism, and this provides another opportunity for citizens to feel as if newspapers are biased. At the other side of the argument, The New York Times published an article publicly and blatantly against a candidate they endorsed.

In all actuality, publishing the article should counteract people's beliefs of newspapers being biased, but The New York Times is viewed as a liberal paper and Senator McCain is Republican. The question raised by Collazo is legitimate in essentially asking, "How can you slam a candidate whom you publicly endorse?" I view endorsing as another word for "supporting," and The New York Times did nothing to "endorse" with this article. Sadly, this will only support the Republican view as The New York Times being public enemy number one. With almost every paper endorsing candidates, how ethical is it to endorse someone while attempting to present information on a factual basis.

With over 4,000 people asking questions, The New York Times is staying busy dressing the wound they shot in their foot.