McCarthyism?

So yesterday's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal (page 3B) contained an opinion piece by one of the paper's writers.  He discussed the public's response to finding out that certain people in the media (radio, paper, tv) had signed the recall petition for Governor Walker.  The question these days is "Should reporters have the right to sign petitions?"  The employers say no.  Some employees suggest that this is like blacklisting.

Eugene Kane wrote,

The ethics code of my company is comparable to those of other media organizations that want to always remind their employees of the dangers of exposing a conflict of interest that could impede their ability to report or cover the news.

Got that?

Read it again.

Apparently the danger is not that the reporters HAVE a conflict of interest that messes with their ability to report the news.  The danger is that the conflict of interest be EXPOSED.

Yeah.

And that's why people don't trust the media.