“We believe that her credibility in her position as senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs has been compromised going forward.”[1]
Octavia Nasr
from Mashable! by Vadim Lavrusik
from Editors Weblog – all postings by Carole Wurzelbacher
In a recent article, Michael Arrington, writing for TechCrunch, argues that journalists should openly express their opinions and biases, despite the longstanding idea that journalists should hide their political biases. This argument by Arrington comes on the heels of CNN’s firing of Octavia Nasr because of a controversial tweet and the forced resignation of Helen Thomas because of her statements about Israel. “I think journalists have the right to express their opinions on the topics they cover,” he writes. “More importantly, I think readers have a right to know what those opinions are.”
Arrington points to a particular conversation he had with one journalist who refused to state his political party outright. While this journalist felt that hiding his bias would allow him to maintain public credibility, Arrington argues that it is “necessary for people to know his political biases in order to understand his content in context.”
Read more
