I'm getting paid $1,000 for this article. Last year, I made roughly $50,000 between a 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. freelance gig writing celebrity news and publishing some one-off articles. I grew up middle class, though my divorced father eventually worked his way well into the upper-middle class. Financially speaking, I’m fine, though I live alone in Toronto, and I likely won’t be able to afford a house unless my parents die or my dad provides the cash for a down payment. You probably don’t need to know these details, but it may color what I say next: it is my opinion that wealthy journalists should disclose their wealth when matters of finance, taxation, or any public policy they report on will affect their bottom line.
Back in January, Anderson Cooper, scion of the Vanderbilt family, conducted a one-on-one 60 Minutes interview with the newly sworn-in congressional representative from New York’s 14th District, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The splashy interview generated its biggest moment when Cooper suggested that Ocasio-Cortez’s policy agenda of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal was “radical,” asking her, “Do you call yourself a radical?” “Yeah. You know, if that’s what radical means, call me a radical,” she responded, defiantly.
Less viral but more telling was the exchange leading up to that moment, with Cooper pressing Ocasio-Cortez about the revenue needed to pay for her programs. “This would require, though, raising taxes,” he said, as though the very notion were absurd. When Ocasio-Cortez agreed that “people are going to have to start paying their fair share in taxes,” Cooper pressed her again, almost annoyed: “Do you have a specific on the tax rate?” This gave the first-year congresswoman space to explain top marginal tax rates because Cooper and the 60 Minutes producers evidently had no interest in doing so themselves. Which gets to what was so clarifying about the back-and-forth: not Cooper’s questions about how a politician intended to pay for her agenda, but his disbelief verging on indignation at the prospect of a tax increase for the wealthiest Americans. It’s an idea with broad popular support, though perhaps not among the Vanderbilts.
Imagine, for a moment, if, at the top of the segment, Cooper had told his audience—reminded them—that he is a multimillionaire. That he is the primetime anchor at one of the country’s biggest cable news outlets. Though CNN and CBS don’t disclose the value of their contracts with on-air talent, pegging Cooper’s earnings in the tens of millions isn’t a stretch. Take a look at Megyn Kelly’s $30 million exit package from NBC News—after being fired for being racist, no less!—and you’ll get a good sense of the exorbitant salaries networks pay their top anchors. So, imagine it. Cooper, before launching into a loaded line of questioning about Ocasio-Cortez’s tax policy, openly states to the audience, “In the interest of full-disclosure: I, Anderson Cooper, heir to a vast fortune, currently make more money per year than you plebs at home could dream of, and I would be directly affected by Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed 70 percent marginal tax on incomes over $10 million.” Would he then have had the gall to highlight the tax increase? And would any reasonable viewer have bought into his bullshit?
Avoiding conflicts of interest is basic ethical practice for journalists. Check any news organization or journalism school’s handbook on ethics, and you’ll find the concept is central to maintaining credibility in journalism. “Any personal or professional interests that conflict with [our allegiance to the public], whether in appearance or in reality, risk compromising our credibility,” explains NPR’s Ethics Handbook. “We are vigilant in disclosing to both our supervisors and the public any circumstances where our loyalties may be divided—extending to the interests of spouses and other family members—and when necessary, we recuse ourselves from related coverage.”
Watching for potential conflicts, understanding them, acknowledging and disclosing them, publicly where necessary, are among the core jobs of any journalist with a shred of self-respect. Consumers of journalism, meanwhile, are already accustomed to such disclosures, which often come in the form of “so-and-so company is owned by our parent company.” When spouses or family members are involved, a recusal is usually in order, but it’s not unheard of for a journalist or news anchor to state that one of the subjects in a story is a friend. This is all a matter of simple honesty, though it’s not always adhered to in the strictest terms. Still, the prejudicial effects of a journalist’s net worth never enter into the equation at all.
Searching through various publications’ codes of ethics, from the Washington Post to the New York Times, directly named conflicts of interest tend to fall into categories of familial relation, partisan work, direct financial entanglements, work outside the organization, and the accepting of gifts, travel, or direct payment. Listed nowhere is the matter of salary or wealth. Given a few moments’ thought, it’s staggering to consider all of the effort that went into the New York Times’ eleven-thousand-word “Ethical Journalism” handbook without its writers ever considering, at least on the page, their salaries or inherited wealth as potential conflicts. Then again, the paper that employs Bari Weiss to garner hate-clicks may not be the ideal place to search for structural critiques of capitalism.
Back in January, Anderson Cooper, scion of the Vanderbilt family, conducted a one-on-one 60 Minutes interview with the newly sworn-in congressional representative from New York’s 14th District, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The splashy interview generated its biggest moment when Cooper suggested that Ocasio-Cortez’s policy agenda of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal was “radical,” asking her, “Do you call yourself a radical?” “Yeah. You know, if that’s what radical means, call me a radical,” she responded, defiantly.Less viral but more telling was the exchange leading up to that moment, with Cooper pressing Ocasio-Cortez about the revenue needed to pay for her programs. “This would require, though, raising taxes,” he said, as though the very notion were absurd. When Ocasio-Cortez agreed that “people are going to have to start paying their fair share in taxes,” Cooper pressed her again, almost annoyed: “Do you have a specific on the tax rate?” This gave the first-year congresswoman space to explain top marginal tax rates because Cooper and the 60 Minutes producers evidently had no interest in doing so themselves. Which gets to what was so clarifying about the back-and-forth: not Cooper’s questions about how a politician intended to pay for her agenda, but his disbelief verging on indignation at the prospect of a tax increase for the wealthiest Americans. It’s an idea with broad popular support, though perhaps not among the Vanderbilts.
Imagine, for a moment, if, at the top of the segment, Cooper had told his audience—reminded them—that he is a multimillionaire. That he is the primetime anchor at one of the country’s biggest cable news outlets. Though CNN and CBS don’t disclose the value of their contracts with on-air talent, pegging Cooper’s earnings in the tens of millions isn’t a stretch. Take a look at Megyn Kelly’s $30 million exit package from NBC News—after being fired for being racist, no less!—and you’ll get a good sense of the exorbitant salaries networks pay their top anchors. So, imagine it. Cooper, before launching into a loaded line of questioning about Ocasio-Cortez’s tax policy, openly states to the audience, “In the interest of full-disclosure: I, Anderson Cooper, heir to a vast fortune, currently make more money per year than you plebs at home could dream of, and I would be directly affected by Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed 70 percent marginal tax on incomes over $10 million.” Would he then have had the gall to highlight the tax increase? And would any reasonable viewer have bought into his bullshit?
Avoiding conflicts of interest is basic ethical practice for journalists. Check any news organization or journalism school’s handbook on ethics, and you’ll find the concept is central to maintaining credibility in journalism. “Any personal or professional interests that conflict with [our allegiance to the public], whether in appearance or in reality, risk compromising our credibility,” explains NPR’s Ethics Handbook. “We are vigilant in disclosing to both our supervisors and the public any circumstances where our loyalties may be divided—extending to the interests of spouses and other family members—and when necessary, we recuse ourselves from related coverage.”
Watching for potential conflicts, understanding them, acknowledging and disclosing them, publicly where necessary, are among the core jobs of any journalist with a shred of self-respect. Consumers of journalism, meanwhile, are already accustomed to such disclosures, which often come in the form of “so-and-so company is owned by our parent company.” When spouses or family members are involved, a recusal is usually in order, but it’s not unheard of for a journalist or news anchor to state that one of the subjects in a story is a friend. This is all a matter of simple honesty, though it’s not always adhered to in the strictest terms. Still, the prejudicial effects of a journalist’s net worth never enter into the equation at all.
Searching through various publications’ codes of ethics, from the Washington Post to the New York Times, directly named conflicts of interest tend to fall into categories of familial relation, partisan work, direct financial entanglements, work outside the organization, and the accepting of gifts, travel, or direct payment. Listed nowhere is the matter of salary or wealth. Given a few moments’ thought, it’s staggering to consider all of the effort that went into the New York Times’ eleven-thousand-word “Ethical Journalism” handbook without its writers ever considering, at least on the page, their salaries or inherited wealth as potential conflicts. Then again, the paper that employs Bari Weiss to garner hate-clicks may not be the ideal place to search for structural critiques of capitalism.
by Corey Atad, The Baffler | Read more:
Image: Zoë van Dijk
