GOODY TWO SHOES: An Un-Fortune-ate Conflict Of Interest
Fortune Washington Bureau Chief Nina Easton, who is married to Russ Schriefer, a Republican media consultant who worked on Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign, “advised me on ways to make the message of what I had written more clear and compelling,’’ Romney writes in the acknowledgments section of his book “No Apology.”
In an e-mail exchange, Easton tells The Boston Globe that she was not paid by Romney: “Mitt asked me - as a friend and a book author myself - for some input on an early draft. I offered some writer’s advice on things like structure and how to better tease out themes in his writing. It wasn’t much.’’
The Globe notes that “[m]any news organizations have policies explicitly forbidding reporters and editors from offering any support for political figures or their campaigns,” and Stephen Shepard dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York calls the informal arrangement between Easton and Romney “a conflict of interest” and “an ethical no-no.”
Easton also tells The Globe that as an on-air analyst for FOX News she routinely disclosed Schriefer’s work for Romney. But if The Stiletto’s memory serves, Easton hasn’t once disclosed her own friendship with Romney in her recent appearances on FOX. Easton needs a refresher on personal relationships that need to be disclosed to readers and viewers.
Editorial Note: Speaking of an ongoing conflict of interest, Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby points out that sister paper, The New York Times, gave former vice president Al Gore 1,999 words to defend the increasingly indefensible conduct of climate change “scientists” without explicitly reminding readers that “Gore has invested heavily in carbon-offset markets, electric vehicles, and other ventures that would profit handsomely from legislation curbing the use of fossil fuels, and is reportedly poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire.’’
There was a bland disclosure in the bio note following the op-ed (“As a businessman, he is an investor in alternative energy companies), but Gore himself did not clearly state that his interest in global warming isn’t merely humanitarian or academic. It’s too much to ask readers to recall and re-read (or read for the first time) an article The Times ran three months earlier that includes information readers should have had at hand to be able to evaluate Gore's objectivity - and therefore, authoritativeness - on this topic.
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