The lead story in the Sunday, May 27, print version of The News & Observer wasn’t written by an N&O reporter or the Associated Press, nor any other supposedly impartial wire service. It was written by a left-liberal organization, the Center for Public Integrity.
The N&O explains in an editor’s note that McClatchy (owners of The N&O) and Tribune News Service are engaged in a joint project with the Center, an organization that bills itself as doing investigative journalism in the public interest. That’s the fig leaf that, I suppose, allows papers that use their work to avoid being completely embarrassed by the association. The Center claims that it takes no money from corporations, labor unions, political parties or government agencies, but the project itself was funded by the JEHT Foundation. JEHT, its Web site explains, stands for justice, equality, human dignity and tolerance. The Center for Public Integrity itself is funded by another long line of liberal-left philanthropies.
Just wondering, will Amnesty International write the next story on Abu Ghraib? Will the Southern Poverty Law Center write the next expose of hate crimes? Will the Chamber of Commerce be allowed to write a story about eminent domain?
There was a time when editors would have slit their wrists before allowing their precious news space to be used by an outside party, other than a wire service. Using news releases as news, for instance, is considered the kind of journalism reserved for the basest of weeklies. Well, not any more. Times are indeed, a-changin’.