The ghost in Mitt Romney’s machine

Nina Easton

I’m always amazed when journalists find themselves unwilling to follow the simple ethical rules of our business. So this morning I find myself scratching my head over the news that Nina Easton, an ex-Boston Globe reporter who is still working as a journalist, helped former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney write his new book, “No Apology.”

Globe reporter Sasha Issenberg writes that Romney pays tribute to Easton’s contributions in the acknowledgments. And Easton, now Washington bureau chief for Fortune magazine and a commentator on Fox News, has this to say for herself:

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.

No, not much. Just enough to disqualify her from commenting on the 2012 presidential campaign as long as Romney is a candidate. (And please don’t tell me that he’s not a candidate. Romney’s 2012 campaign began the day he dropped out of the ’08 race.) At least Easton left the Globe in 2006; it wouldn’t be good if her fingerprints were found on the paper’s massive 2007 Romney series.

Here, by the way, is Easton on Fox’s “Hannity” on May 28, 2009, talking about efforts by the Bush and Obama administrations to bail out General Motors:

How is it all possible, Sean? How is it possible is that the Bush administration punted on this. They punted by giving TARP funds, bailing out GM, and punting it to the next administration when, in fact, we should have gone through a Mitt-Romney-style plan, which was a government-managed bankruptcy, which would have left this company far more in the private sector.

Clearly the two presidents should have been wearing a wristband that said “WWMD?” — “What Would Mitt Do?”

Easton, of course, is hardly a pioneer. Perhaps the most memorable of such breaches took place in 1980, when columnist George Will helped Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan prep for his debate with then-president Jimmy Carter, and subsequently enthused over Reagan’s “thoroughbred performance” on “Nightline” without disclosing his role.

And, yes, Globe journalists have been known to lend a hand in various ways to Democratic politicians over the years.

But it’s a lousy practice, and I can’t understand why some journalists are so attracted to it. I mean, how did Easton ever get to the point at which she considered Romney a “friend” in the first place? This is someone she covers. Period.

More: I had not anticipated the demand for details I’ve received regarding the aid and comfort Democratic politicians have gotten from the Globe. I did have a specific incident in mind when I wrote that sentence, but it was a long time ago and I have my reasons for not wanting to get into it. Indeed, anything I could come up with would predate not just Marty Baron’s tenure as editor, but his predecessor, Matt Storin’s, as well.

For some insight into how the Globe and Democratic politicians once benefited mightily from each other’s favors, you might want to take a look at this piece I wrote some years ago (pay no attention to the date at the top of the page) about Jack Farrell’s wonderful book “Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century.”

Two cheers for anonymous sources

Yes, anonymous quotes should be used sparingly. But in my latest for the Guardian, I argue that they are just like anything else in the journalist’s toolbox — a help to readers when used properly, a bane when abused.

Media Nation heads for the Merrimack Valley

I’ll be speaking later today at a conference of the Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System, which Mrs. Media Nation reliably informs me is pronounced NIM-rils. The event is being held at Nevins Memorial Library in Methuen.

My topic will be a familiar one — reinventing journalism in the post-newspaper age — but I hope to add a few wrinkles to it based on some recent developments at the Boston Globe, and on the time I’ve been spending with the folks from the New Haven Independent.

I’ve posted the slideshow I’ll be using. For some reason, a few odd breaks crept in when it was converted from PowerPoint to SlideShare. But you’ll get the idea.

Tomorrow I head back to the Merrimack Valley for a panel discussion on how blogging on newspaper Web sites has affected the news cycle — and how that can create challenges in breaking-news situations.

The panel, part of a conference being held by the New England Society of Newspaper Editors (NEZ-nee? I’ll have to get back to you on that), will be held at the Eagle-Tribune in North Andover.

Balloon dad hits the 14:59 mark

Yes, we should all be skeptical about checkbook journalism, and Gawker is right up front about having paid Robert Thomas, a former friend and would-be business associate of balloon dad Richard Heene (photo).

But if Thomas can be trusted, the picture he paints of Heene is devastating. Thomas portrays Heene as an increasingly paranoid, frantic man who believes shape-shifting reptiles are running the government and who would do anything to get on television.

The two had even talked about perpetrating a hoax with the balloon, Thomas claims, though getting one of the kids involved was supposedly not part of the original plan.

This story in the Denver Post only adds to the sense that it’s all about to fall apart.

Photo of Heene is from his MySpace profile.

Journalism ethics in real time

Melissa Bailey

Melissa Bailey, the managing editor of the New Haven Independent, has written a fascinating story for Slate’s Double X on the steps she took to protect the identities of the fiancée and the ex-girlfriend of Raymond Clark, who’s been charged with the murder of Yale University student Annie Le. Bailey writes:

We learned the girlfriend’s identity, as well as the names of Clark and his current fiancee, before their identities were public. This was in the days after Le had disappeared but before her body was found, when slews of national reporters had descended on our city to find clues to the killing. As we chased the story, I wanted to break news — that’s my job. But I also wanted to shield the women caught up in the case from an onslaught of judgment and national attention that would make things harder for them.

Bailey writes about the decision to use material from the women’s Facebook and MySpace pages even while withholding their names. The Independent also withheld Clark’s name until he had been formally charged, even after New Haven police put it in a press release and repeated it at a news conference.

Her essay is an interesting, close-up look at applied journalism ethics. I’m not sure whether I’d have made the same calls as the Independent. But I’m impressed at how much thought went into Bailey’s and editor Paul Bass’ decision-making.

How meta is this?

Media Nation links to the New Haven Independent’s coverage of the Annie Le murder, noting that the news site refrained from naming the suspect, Raymond Clark, until he had been formally charged. The Independent links back to Media Nation’s commentary on said decision and asks its readers to comment.

Check out the discussion.

Torturing a Cheney photo

Well-known photojournalist David Hume Kennerly is ripping mad at Newsweek for cropping his photo of Dick Cheney and his family to make it look like the former vice president is picking over the remains of a small animal. (Be sure to click through so that you can see the before and after pictures.)

Appropriately enough (make that inappropriately enough), the photo was used to illustrate something Cheney had said about torture, of which he’s all in favor.

Noting that Newsweek had taken a picture of a warm family scene and cropped it so that it looked like an animal sacrifice, with Cheney as the knife-wielding priest, Kennerly writes:

This radical alteration is photo fakery. Newsweek’s choice to run my picture as a political cartoon not only embarrassed and humiliated me and ridiculed the subject of the picture, but it ultimately denigrated my profession.

Kennerly’s right on target, as the lame response from a Newsweek spokesman makes clear. The photo was tortured into something that it was not. As a result, it’s not journalism, either.

Murder suspect charged — and named

Police in Connecticut this morning finally charged Raymond Clark in connection with the murder of Yale University student Annie Le. And with that, the New Haven Independent — which had refused to identify Clark when he was merely a “person of interest” — has named him and posted a photo.

Earlier: “Ethics, competition and a high-profile murder.”

Paul Bass on (not) naming names

After I posted an item earlier today on the New Haven Independent’s decision not to identify Raymond Clark, the “person of interest” in the murder of Yale University student Annie Le, I invited editor Paul Bass to comment on his decision.

Bass replied by e-mail, telling me that “you’re so right — it’s futile. But we wanted to be consistent.” He added that “we originally broke the story about this suspect. The national media said a student was the suspect. We reported that, no, it was a lab tech, and we gave details that wouldn’t lead the public to be able to find him. We had the name pretty early, and some good info, but decided to go with the basic story.”

In a follow-up e-mail, Bass explained, “We do have quite a strong policy about withholding names. In our routine police stories, we rarely name people (non-public figures) arrested unless there’s a compelling reason, or we’ve gotten their side. We might be wrong, for sure. Lotta back and forth. Maybe a futile high horse thing. Don’t know.”

Ethics, competition and a high-profile murder

Annie Le

A 24-year-old resident of Middletown, Conn., has been detained and identified as a “person of interest” in the murder of Yale University student Annie Le.

Most news outlets, including the New Haven Register and the New York Times, have identified the man as Raymond Clark, a Yale lab technician. Each includes a photo of him in police custody. Yet the New Haven Independent, a non-profit news site, has declined to name him. In a story posted late Monday afternoon, editor Paul Bass wrote:

As of Monday afternoon, police had no suspects in custody in the investigation of graduate student Annie Le’s grisly death, [New Haven Police] Chief James Lewis said.

He told the Independent that his cops have been busy interviewing “and reinterviewing” “lots of people.” The department will not reveal the names of interviewees or “persons of interest,” according to Lewis.

“We don’t want to destroy people’s reputations,” Lewis said.

But Lewis reversed himself once Clark was taken into custody. The New Haven Police Department named Clark in a press release shortly after Clark had been removed from his Middletown apartment. Following Lewis’ news conference Tuesday night, the Independent’s managing editor, Melissa Bailey, wrote:

“We’ve known where he was at all along,” Police Chief James Lewis said at a press conference late Tuesday night at police headquarters. He spoke before a throng of video cameras.

Police named the target of the search, calling him a “person of interest.”

In an accompanying video Bailey shot of Lewis speaking to the media, Clark’s name does not pass from the chief’s lips. In a follow-up posted shortly before midnight, Bailey added: “A prime suspect is a 24-year-old Yale lab tech who until this past week worked at 10 Amistad St. among other locations. His identity was confirmed by officials close to the probe. The Independent is withholding his name.”

There’s certainly a strong case to be made for not naming Clark. Unless he is charged, he is not a suspect in Le’s murder. The possibility exists that an innocent person will have had his reputation permanently smeared.

But though the Independent’s — well, independence — is admirable, it’s also futile. (Which is why I named Clark.) Still, by taking a principled stand, Bass may well earn the respect of his readers. Take, for instance, this comment to the Independent, at the bottom of this story, from “ASDF,” posted Tuesday evening:

This better be the person who did it, because his name is being published at other sites. Thank you for the good sense to not publish his name at this time — ever since the NHPD took the case over, the leaks have been coming out at a pretty fast pace.

I really don’t understand what there is to gain by releasing his name — if you don’t have enough evidence to arrest him, then you don’t have enough evidence to smear him in the media.

Finally, I wonder why Chief Lewis folded as quickly as he did. In less than a day, he went from vowing not to name anyone who hadn’t been charged with the murder to blasting out Clark’s name in a press release.

Maybe he believed his hand had been forced, since Clark’s name was circulating anyway. Maybe he just couldn’t resist. But it strikes me that his first instinct was the one he should have followed.

More: Bass responds.