Monday, February 4, 2008

A journalist's right to vote

I was reading poynter.org this morning and came across this article talking about whether journalists should vote in the primary elections. While I realize that this is an issue of conflicts of interest in specific beat reporting, I thought Kelly McBride made an interesting point when he quoted Denver Post editor Greg Moore, saying, "He said he would not prohibit folks from attending, but that he would prefer they hold back."

Is this something we, as student journalists, should start doing even now, in our formative years? This is personally the first time I'll be voting in an election (the last time there was a presidential election, I was still in high school), and I want to milk it for all its worth ... but as a journalist, albeit a student journalist, is voting and political affiliations something I need to be worrying about even now? I know that many of my j-school peers are publicly involved in Young Democrats and College Republicans; is that something they shouldn't be doing right now either? What kind of line is there to be drawn for people who are in the field, but not yet in the field?

Read the whole article here: http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=67&aid=137051

Here's another link to the Denver Post thing: http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2008/01/denver_post_editor_gives_some.php

1 comment:

ljt said...

This is something I've gone back and forth on over the years. Most of my career, I've been opposed to voting in primaries. In fact, I refused to register for a party. When I moved to Arizona and realized I wouldn't be able to vote in anything unless I did, I was angered but went ahead and declared membership in one of the parties. I have never voted in a primary, but I'm wavering in how I feel about it. Especially when my answer to whether you and others who are new to journalism should vote in a primary is "yes, if you feel strongly about it." I think the difference is in how you handle your preferences outside of the voting booth. I firmly believe that lobbying and advocacy should be kept in the background if you're a journalist (student or professional) trying to get an accurate fix on what other people are thinking/feeling. This is a good topic. Thanks for bringing it up.