Thursday, September 30, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

JANE ANN MORRISON: Impartiality important to profession, but journalists should vote

Some journalists don't vote, believing it makes them appear more impartial. Others vote, but register as nonpartisans, also to appear less biased.

I take a different view. I don't mind the newsroom policy banning me from putting up a yard sign or a bumper sticker, but I never fail to vote.

Why shouldn't I be like everybody else, forced to make hard choices between candidates, even when I may not want any of my options to win? And depending on the job they do, why shouldn't I kick myself for poor choices and praise myself for good ones?

I'm a citizen as well as a journalist, and I'm not willing to give up my right to vote either in the primary or the general election.

That puts me at odds with Washington Post icons Ben Bradlee and Bob Woodward of Watergate fame, who spoke Tuesday at UNLV's Barrick Lecture Series.

They're not sure journalists should vote.

A few in the capacity audience booed Woodward, 61, now assistant managing editor for the Post, for saying not voting was a good option because it helps reassure politicians they'll get a fair shake from the news media.

Woodward began the event by asking people to raise their hands to say who they intended to vote for. Despite Nevada being a neck-and-neck state between the two presidential candidates, the audience was overwhelmingly for Democrat John Kerry.

Yet Woodward and Bradlee hedged when asked the simplest of questions: Who will they vote for in the presidential race?

Woodward's cop-out: He lets his daughter, now 8, cast the presidential vote.

He takes her into the booth, and she makes the choice.

She recently told him she had decided between President Bush and Kerry but wasn't going to tell him which one before casting the vote for him.

While it was a cute story, presumably her vote will be influenced by some of the things she hears mom and dad discuss.

Bradlee said Washington, D.C., is overwhelmingly Democratic, and it's easier not to vote there because your vote doesn't make a difference.

But with some prodding from one of the few audience members whose question was direct and didn't ramble to Toledo and back, the veteran newsman said, "I think I could have a little trouble voting for President Bush."

I didn't raise my hand to indicate who I'd vote for because that's my private business and I agree with Woodward that the appearance of impartiality is important for the news media.

But while I don't publicly broadcast my voting choices, I don't waffle out by not choosing.

I don't think it impacts my writing because I've always been tough on candidates in both parties, even candidates I vote for eventually. Both Democrats and Republicans blast me for being biased, fortunately in about equal numbers.

So as a journalist, my favorite part of the evening occurred when one questioner talked about the "elite liberal media," and Bradlee, 83, who had been executive editor of the Washington Post between 1968 until he retired in 1991, snapped back: "What paper? What day? What article?"

It reminded me of the day Democratic warhorse Charlie Waterman screamed that I was biased. "Give me an example?" I asked half a dozen times.

He had none. But in his heart the Democratic Party county chairman believes everyone at the Review-Journal is anti-Democratic, and nothing will dissuade him.

Meanwhile, Republicans hollered I'm biased against the GOP when I agreed with potential second lady Elizabeth Edwards and didn't believe former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was honest when he said he saw a burning body falling from the World Trade Center and said, "Thank God President Bush is our president." (He probably said it sometime, but not at that moment.)

Woodward rejected the premise of one questioner who took the position that the news media have replaced the presidency in importance since the Watergate scandal, which forced President Nixon to resign in 1974.

"We have a small role," Woodward said. "Find out what happened and put it out."

That sounds deceptively simple, but I see Review-Journal reporters, editors and yes, columnists, struggle every day to find out what happened and put it out there for you.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at jane@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0275.