I will be attending the Rally To Restore Sanity. Of course now that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have officially combined their events it is technically The Rally To Restore Sanity and / or Fear, but I'm going for the sanity. I want to call the rally by its full name because I'm a stickler for detail, but I don't want to give people the wrong impression of my motives.
Maybe I can make the Fear parenthetical, as in: "I'm going to the Rally to Restore Sanity (and / or Fear)."
Maybe I can shut up about the name of the event and get on with this blog entry which is about this central question: Is the Stewart / Colbert Rally a political event, or is it a comedy event? According to most news agencies the answer is that it is a political event, or at least must be treated as one. For this reason employees of news agencies are being directed NOT to rally to restore sanity (nor march to keep fear alive).
Most news organizations have policies against their employees participating in rallies, marches, petitions, etc. Their employees cannot run for offices or contribute to political campaigns. Examples of news organizations with policies of this nature include, but are not limited to, ABC News , the Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, NBC News, the New York Times, NPR, Politico, and the Washington Post. The policies of these organizations make it clear that these strictures are necessary in order to preserve the organizations' status as neutral observers, and to prevent their impartiality from being questioned.
NPR has a nice column online about their policy. The Huffington Post has a related column in which they quote the policies of various news organizations.
If you can bring yourself to read the Huffington Post column you'll notice a few things.
1 - NBC specified that the rules for MSNBC staff are different, or have been in the past.
2 - The Wall Street Journal's policy is a little vague compared to most of the others. The Journal expects its employees to "exercise good judgment."
3 - Fox News did not reveal their policy. Fox News always values fair and balanced reporting, of course.
Regarding this last: How could they reveal their policy without revealing that they've probably broken it? Employees of Fox News haven't just participated in rallies, they've hosted them! That's what The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are actively satirizing. As you probably know, Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally is the inspiration for the Stewart / Colbert rally.
Maybe Fox News would like to retroactively reclassify the Beck rally as a comedy event.
Regardless of the origin, it seems the Rally to Restore Sanity (and / or Fear) has taken on a life of its own. It's going to be a huge event. Woodstock huge. Not that it's really going to be like Woodstock. For one thing the rally will be three hours long instead of three days long, and hopefully it won't open with a three hour set from Richie Havens. Seriously. I like singing about freedom as much as anybody, but if I'm taking trains, planes and boats to get to and around DC then the event better be better than that.
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2 comments:
I can tell you that when I was with The North Little Rock Times, we had a clear and public policy: No participation in political activity. That means no donations, no volunteering, no PR work on the side, no bumper stickers or lapel pins, and certainly no running for office. Voting, of course, was perfectly okay. But I don't even sign petitions to get items I support on the ballot, just so I can assiduously avoid the dreaded "appearance of conflict."
Have fun at the rally! Bring back something cool for Michelle, like some of John Stewart's hair!
So will your next blog be comedy or political? I'm getting a kick out of knowing somebody who is really there. I'm especially glad to know someone who knows how to write!
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