Unjournalism

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Kate Parry, reader’s representative at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, wrote a piece last Sunday about Sid Hartman, a 130-year-old sports columnist at the paper, and his apparant breach of journalism ethics resulting from his appearance in a commerical for Sun Country airline. In her Sunday column, Parry explains:

In the commercial, Hartman appears holding a Star Tribune and remarks that he is reading “the greatest newspaper in the world.” That comment, he said, was why he didn’t consult with editors before signing on with Sun Country. “I thought I was doing a favor for the Star Tribune. I say nothing about Sun Country. This was a free commercial for the Star Tribune.”

Hartman would not be where he is professionally if he were that naive.

What an uncomfortable situation he has created for his colleagues, particularly reporters covering the airlines, and for the three top managers — Publisher Keith Moyer, Editor Anders Gyllenhaal and Managing Editor Scott Gillespie — who determined what would and wouldn’t be the consequences for Hartman’s disregard of the Star Tribune’s ethics policies.

I understand the need for a strong sense of ethics in the newsroom. But at the same time, I’m a huge fan of common sense. Common sense and stern rules often butt heads, but for the sake of argument, let’s give this a try:

Ethics in the newsroom, yes, great. But Sid’s hardly part of the newsroom. Generally, newspapers make the “newsroom/not newsroom” distinction when explaining the separation between reporters and editors on one side and editorial writers and their colleagues on the other. But even within the newsroom, you’ll find columnists — the writers whose pictures run in the paper along with their column — whose work is different from completely impartial (in theory) reporting but still appears on the same page as that reported news.

More importantly, Sid is a damn sports columnist. I know that sports sections are probably among the most-read pages in the paper, but I’m too lazy to Google up the numbers to show it. At the same time, you’re retarded if you think sports coverage is on the same level as the content in the A section or the local news section. Hell, even the editorial and op-ed page — opinionated as they may be — are more newsworthy than the sports section.

Even when a news reporter is writing about a dull-ass city hall meeting or the like, it’s still more significant than box scores or “you’ll never believe what the goalie said in the locker room after the game” reporting. Considering the financial tumult in the newspaper business, though, I don’t think anyone’s going to seriously advocate dumping the sports section any time soon. I’d rather throw the sports section away to get to the business section than not have a newspaper.

Getting back to Sid and Sun Country, let’s throw a little common sense at the situation. Parry asks if reporters covering the airlines and related business issues will be able to do their jobs as well in light of this “disregard” for ethics, or if those reporters will be taken seriously, citing the possible perception of compromised integrity. Well, if those reporters honestly — and I do mean honestly, not just “honestly” when discussing the ethics of the situation and feel it necessary to sound righteous — think Sid’s commercial appearance prevents them from doing their jobs, fire those pussies.

I thought reporters were supposed to be hard-asses who don’t take “no” for an answer and want to stick it to the man (that link is a little joke) no matter the cost. If a sports columnist showing up in an ad — saying little more than to declare his newspaper is “the greatest newspaper in the world” — maybe the newspaper business should go belly up.

Tags: ethics, journalism //