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Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Tom Verducci’s conflict of interest
People, using their role of journalist, cannot according to journalistic principles, create the news. They can only report it.
People, as individuals, can votes for awards, thereby creating the news.
If a person, who happens to be an individual and a journalist, wants to vote for an award, he must do so in the role of an individual. He is not a journalist 24/7. For that moment in time, he is an individual. Just like when he votes for his member of congress.
Now, what happens if someone questions who you voted for, or thinks that the voting body sucks? Well, you, as an individual, can speak out, in your forum of whatever forum individuals have. You, as a journalist, since you did not vote as a journalist, cannot defend yourself as an individual.
Basically, your two roles, one as individual and one as journalist, must be treated as two human beings. Verducci the journalist should not be defending Verducci the individual.
Murray Chass make allegations against you that were erroneous? Well, Verducci can speak out as an individual. He can’t speak out as a journalist about it, because he did not vote as a journalist. The correct forum for Verducci to speak out would be as a blogger.
However, Verducci the individual and blogger, agreed to not reveal his vote. That a high profile person such as himself put himself in a position of conflict of interest doesn’t mean that he gets to somehow use his journalistic pulpit to save himself and to get a special dispensation from the committee to do so.
Basically, Verducci put himself in a no-win situation, by not being able to separate the individual from the journalist.
Hey, it’s all great that we feel like a kid that we get to vote on the HOF. The media’s hypocrisy in these matters is overwhelming, and too few in the media are willing to acknowledge the fact. And too few are going to blast Verducci for not only creating his conflict of interest, but also defending it.
Don’t report on news you create. Is that so hard to do?
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