He’s No Journalist

By Al Giordano

When George Stephanopoulos left the Clinton White House and went straight to ABC News, he had never worked as a reporter - not in newspapers, nor on radio, nor on television. His only career experience was as a political hack, whose job in politics was to manipulate the media, hide the facts, and spin, spin, spin.

He was hired to be an on-air bimbo; a pretty face, and for his “access” and rolodex to other political celebrities and figures. And in his years at ABC, an army of producers, reporters and interns have done all the heavy lifting for him.

Had he any experience or background in journalism, he would have been familiar with the basic tenets of ethics codes that major media purport to follow. Every single news organization insists that conflicts-of-interest and even “the appearance of conflict-of-interest” must be openly disclosed by a reporter on a story. Take the Associated Press Managing Editors Association Statement of Ethical Principles, for example:

“The newspaper and its staff should be free of obligations to news sources and newsmakers. Even the appearance of obligation or conflict of interest should be avoided.”

At times there are conflicts presented by previous employment - in this case, Stephanopoulos’ high-level role in the Clinton Administration of the 1990s. In those cases, a simple disclosure during a broadcast or a news story is necessary. But we didn’t hear that from Stephanopoulos or anyone else at ABC last night, as he steered the first 50 minutes of the debate away from policy issues (Iraq, health care, “free trade,” jobs, the environment, etcetera) and into what everybody today knows was a transparent attempt to give oxygen to the spouse of his former employer and to trash her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

As a journalist, a professor of journalism, and the president of an international journalism school, I look at this guy and understand exactly why so many people have grown to distrust our profession. A lot of people obsess and fret about Fox News, or Rush Limbaugh, or others that at least don’t pretend to be “objective” and “unbiased” (or even journalists!) but the real cancer on journalism today is in the mainstream and its lackeys that claim that they are: in this case ABC and its resident political airhead George Stephanopoulos, who deserves all the blowback and more that is heading back at him today.