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Dec
7
Read this Washington Post story from today, but especially the nearly first and last paragraphs:
ABC News will announce today that [former Bush strategist Matthew] Dowd has been tapped as an on-air contributor and blogger, the latest member of the Bush team to embed himself in the media while their ex-boss still runs the country.
[snip]
Dowd isn’t giving up his Austin-based lobbying business, ViaNovo, whose clients range from Fortune 500 companies to elected officials and governments, including the Texas Transportation Department, through a contract that Democrats complained was hidden from them. But he is intrigued by the challenge of shaping public opinion from the other side.
Okay then, professional journalists: what do you – what does and should the profession expect of Dowd? Of ABC? Will his entire list of clients be subject to…what exactly?
1) The list will be handed over to ABC and Dowd will be forbidden to talk about them.
2) The list will be handed over to ABC and will be displayed, as full disclosure, as a running ticker every time Dowd is on air.
3) The list will be handed over to ABC and will be displayed, as full disclosure, on every webpage where Dowd’s work is published.
4) All of the above.
5) None of the above.
More questions:
Who asks whom? Should ABC raise this with Dowd and be sure it’s in his contract? Should Dowd offer up the list without prompting?
I might just have to ask Mr. Dowd and the ABC folks myself as to how they are handling this. I know some people wish the Wide Open issues would go away, but they won’t – not until they are solved and resolved, every single time a journalist or a blogger, who is asked to provide opinion and get paid for it, starts to work with or for a journalism outfit.
If Wide Open’s demise is going to mean anything, it should mean that these relationships are examined and exposed for educational reasons, at a minimum, not to mention the benefit of the readers, in the name of transparency.
Now – if Dowd wasn’t going to continue lobbying, that would be another matter. Does anyone think that ABC asked him to give it up and he said no?
NB: Check out his speaker fees. I need to get me some of those.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:59 pm December 7th, 2007 in Blogging, Government, Marketing, Media, Politics, Wide Open
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2 Responses to “Matthew Dowd, ABC News, his lobbying business & those darn ethics standards”
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What do I expect? Very little. Did ABC ask? I doubt it.
Becky – I would be okay reading what he has to say but I don’t know how much credence I’d give it – it’s not likely I’d allow anything he says to stand alone, but then I don’t do that often anyway, for anyone. David Gergen is someone though who breaks that rule for me.
ABC should be transparent and tell us what’s gone down.