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News :: Media |
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George Will's Ethics: None Of Our Business? |
Current rating: 2 |
by Norman Solomon
(No verified email address) |
02 Jan 2004
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Local-boy-made-good George Will's column appears regularly in the Champaign News-Gazette. The specific Will column discussed in this piece by Norman Solomon no doubt also appeared in the N-G, yet there has not been any mention there of the rather obvious ethical lapses of Mr. Will in connection with his quoting of Conrad Black, his financial benefactor. Of course, the N-G also regularly buried news of the scandal enveloping Republican Gov. George Ryan, until it could no longer be ignored. When it comes to conservative perfidity, the N-G's readers can be sure they'll be the last to know. ML |
We can argue about George Will's political views. But there's no need to debate his professional ethics.
Late December brought to light a pair of self-inflicted wounds to the famous columnist's ethical pretensions. He broke an elementary rule of journalism -- and then, when the New York Times called him on it, proclaimed the transgression to be no one's business but his own.
It turns out that George Will was among a number of prominent individuals to receive $25,000 per day of conversation on a board of advisers for Hollinger International, a newspaper firm controlled by magnate Conrad Black. Although Will has often scorned the convenient forgetfulness of others, the Times reported that "Mr. Will could not recall how many meetings he attended." But an aide confirmed the annual $25,000 fee.
Even for a wealthy commentator, that's a hefty paycheck for one day of talk. But it didn't stop Will from lavishing praise on Black in print -- without a word about their financial tie.
In early March, Will wrote a syndicated piece that blasted critics of President Bush's plans to launch an all-out war on Iraq. Several paragraphs of the column featured quotations from a speech by Black. The laudatory treatment began high in the column as Will referred to some criticisms of Bush policies and then wrote: "Into this welter of foolishness has waded Conrad Black."
The column did not contain the slightest hint that this wonderful foe of "foolishness" had provided checks to fatten the columnist's assets at $25,000 a pop.
But Will claimed in a December interview that nothing was amiss. "Asked in the interview if he should have told his readers of the payments he had received from Hollinger," a New York Times article reported on Dec. 22, "Mr. Will said he saw no reason to do so."
The Times quoted Will as saying: "My business is my business. Got it?"
Yeah. We get it, George. The only question is whether the editors who keep printing your stuff will get it, too.
After three decades as a superstar pundit, Will continues to flourish. Several hundred newspapers publish his syndicated column, Newsweek prints two-dozen essays per year, and he appears each Sunday on ABC's "This Week" television show.
The syndicate with a very big stake in George Will cannot be indifferent to the latest flap, but there's obvious reticence to singe the right-winged golden goose. The man who's the Washington Post Writers Group editorial director and general manager, Alan Shearer, said: "I think I would have liked to have known."
A week later, via a letter in the New York Times, a more forthright response came from Gilbert Cranberg, former chairman of the professional standards committee of the National Conference of Editorial Writers: "When a syndicated journalist writes favorably about a benefactor, that is very much the business of Mr. Will's editors and readers."
Cranberg quoted from the National Conference of Editorial Writers code of ethics, which includes provisions that "the writer should be constantly alert to conflicts of interest, real or apparent" -- including "those that may arise from financial holdings" and "secondary employment." Noting that "timely public disclosure can minimize suspicion," the code adds: "Editors should seek to hold syndicates to these standards."
But will they? George Will is a syndicated powerhouse. And he has gotten away with hiding other big conflicts of interest over the last quarter-century.
In October 1980, Will appeared on the ABC television program "Nightline" to praise Ronald Reagan's "thoroughbred performance" in a debate with incumbent President Jimmy Carter. But Will did not disclose to viewers that he'd helped coach Reagan for the debate -- and, in the process, had read Carter briefing materials stolen from the White House.
When, much later, Will's "debategate" duplicity came to light, his media colleagues let him off with a polite scolding. The incident faded from media memory. Thus, in autumn 1992, when Will reminisced on ABC's "This Week" about the 1980 Carter-Reagan debate, he didn't mention his own devious role, and none of his journalistic buddies in the studio were impolite enough to say anything about it.
Will has also played fast and loose with ethics in the midst of other contests for the presidency. At the media watch group FAIR (where I'm an associate), senior analyst Steve Rendall pointed out: "During the 1996 campaign, Will caught some criticism for commenting on the presidential race while his second wife, Mari Maseng Will, was a senior staffer for the Dole presidential campaign. Defending a Dole speech on ABC News (1/28/96), Will, according to Washingtonian magazine (3/96), 'failed to mention ... that his wife not only counseled Dole to give the speech but also helped write it.'"
In 2000, Will "suffered another ethical lapse," Rendall recounts in Extra!, FAIR's magazine. The renowned columnist "met with George W. Bush just before the Republican candidate was to appear on ABC's 'This Week.' Later, in a column (3/4/01), Will admitted that he'd met with Bush to preview questions, not wanting to 'ambush him with unfamiliar material.' In the meeting, Will provided Bush with a 3-by-5 card containing a crucial question he would later ask the candidate on the air."
George Will has long been fond of denouncing moral deficiencies. Typical was this fulmination in a March 1994 column: "Taught that their sincerity legitimized their intentions, the children of the 1960s grew up convinced they could not do wrong. Hence the Clinton administration's genuine bewilderment when accused of ethical lapses."
In what can be understood as a case of psychological projection, Will derisively added: "It is a theoretical impossibility for people in 'the party of compassion' to behave badly because good behavior is whatever they do."
During the past three decades, Will -- who chose to become a syndicated Washington Post columnist in the early 1970s rather than continue as a speech writer for Sen. Jesse Helms -- has been fond of commenting on the moral failures of black people while depicting programs for equity as ripoff artistry. In February 1991, for instance, he wrote: "The rickety structure of affirmative action, quotas and the rest of the racial spoils system depends on victimology -- winning for certain groups the lucrative status of victim."
In subsequent years, not satisfied with his own very lucrative status, Will made a quiet pact with corporate wheeler-dealer Conrad Black. When exposed, Will compounded his malfeasance by declaring that it was only "my business."
Words that George Will wrote 10 years ago now aptly describe his own stance: "It is a theoretical impossibility" that he behaved badly. "Good behavior" is whatever he does.
Nice work if he can get it. And he can.
Got it?
Background link:
"The Hypocrisy of George Will" by Steve Rendall -- Extra!, Sept./Oct. 2003 http://www.fair.org/extra/0309/will.html
Norman Solomon is co-author, with Reese Erlich, of "Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You." |
Comments
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Re: George Will's Ethics: None Of Our Business? |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 2
02 Jan 2004
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Excellent post; thank you!
And to think, I used to believe Will was an interesting writer and OK guy (back before I started paying attention).
Just another money-loving, Rep'-owned weasel. A flesh and blood extension of the current Rep efforts to grow their Big Media monopoly.
The Republican cancer manifests itself in surprising ways, doesn't it? |
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Re: George Will's Ethics: None Of Our Business? |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -2
03 Jan 2004
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Well Well, the anti-jack is back. Funny how you only demand ethics from Conservatives. Identity theft is a very serious offense nutbag.
The Real Jack |
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Re: George Will's Ethics: None Of Our Business? |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
03 Jan 2004
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Identity theft is a very serious offense
LOL! "Identity theft", on an anonymous forum, that's rich! So sue me, or call the cops! Although I'm sure they already have your phone number on their "blowhards to pacify and ignore" list.
Well, and when it's the nurse's-station phone-number from the local psych ward that shows up, they kind-of already know the deal.
Hahahahhaahhahaha..... take another Haldol, dittohead.
The Real Jack |
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Re: George Will's Ethics: None Of Our Business? |
by Muck Raker
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 8
05 Jan 2004
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Hey, Mr. Conservative Jack Ryan, if you want to "own" your on-screen identity here, all you need to do is leave an e-mail address when you post. Then the software will send you a message to respond to, and then it will turn up as a "verified" e-mail address.
Since only you have access to your e-mail address, then you can plainly show that all those Jack Ryans posting with "No verified email address," aren't you, the real, Conservative Jack Ryan, maybe the Illinois Republican Candidate for Senate.
It's a trade off -- if you want a verifiable and defensible identity, then you need to sacrifice a little anonymity. |
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Re: George Will's Ethics: None Of Our Business? |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
05 Jan 2004
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Dear MR,
Thanks for the tip. Actually, I think it very evident to virtually everyone who the real Jack Ryan is. (My stuff makes sense and usually pisses everyone on this site off) So be it.
As I have indicated in past posts, I do too much business with the liberals in Urbana and charge them exhorbitant amounts for my services for them to know my true identity. Ironic isn't it?
So the anti Jack can do what he wishes. If he would like to spend his time worshiping me than so be it.
Jack |
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Are George Will's Conflicts None of Your Business? |
by FAIR
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
12 Jan 2004
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WASHINGTON - January 9 - George F. Will, columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group, devoted his column on March 4, 2003 to the thoughts of press baron Conrad Black.
After spending two paragraphs describing complaints about George W. Bush's preparations for the invasion of Iraq, Will wrote: "Into this welter of foolishness has waded Conrad Black, a British citizen and member of the House of Lords who is a proprietor of many newspapers, including the Telegraph of London and the Sun-Times of Chicago." Almost the entire remainder of the column is devoted to relating Black's views on U.S. foreign policy.
In the column, Will failed to mention that he has been a paid employee of Conrad Black, who named Will, along with several other mostly conservative luminaries, to the international advisory board of Black's Hollinger International. Each time he attended the board's annual meetings, the New York Times revealed (12/22/03), Will received compensation of $25,000.
Queried by the Times, Will could not recall how many meetings he had attended, but fellow board member William F. Buckley estimated his own take at "perhaps $200,000 or more."
Asked whether he should have revealed that the mogul whose views he was promoting had paid him substantial sums of money, Will told the Times, "My business is my business," adding, "Got it?" Apparently he keeps his business to himself; the Washington Post Writers Group's editorial director and general manager, Alan Shearer, did not know about Black's payments to Will, according to the Times. "I think I would have liked to have known," the paper quoted Shearer as saying.
In a response to a letter from a reader criticizing Will's failure to disclose his conflict of interest, however, Shearer defended his columnist. "George's service on the Hollinger advisory board ended two years before Will quoted Black in a column. And the column was not about Black; it quoted a speech by Black in service of a point George was making about national sovereignty."
Readers can judge for themselves whether a financial relationship that involves tens of thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars is no longer significant after two years. On the second point, Shearer is inaccurate: Black is quoted or cited by name in five of the column's eight paragraphs, making it substantially a column about Black.
The letter writer had cited other examples of Will failing to disclose conflicts of interest, including Will's commenting on the 1980 debate between President Jimmy Carter and candidate Ronald Reagan, after helping Reagan prepare for the debate by playing the role of a journalist in a rehearsal. Shearer described this charge as "misinformation," saying that Will "revealed his presence at the rehearsal on the air with [ABC's] Ted Koppel following the debate the next day."
What Will actually told Koppel was, "I had a chance to see a bit of the preparation for the debate as an observer" (New York Times, 7/9/83). By referring to himself as an "observer" of a rehearsal that he actually participated in, he was not disclosing his role but concealing it.
Will's relationship with Black-- undisclosed even to his editor at the Writers Group-- would seem to be a clear violation of the Post's conflict of interest policy: "This newspaper is pledged to avoid conflict of interest or the appearance of conflict of interest, wherever and whenever possible.... We work for no one except the Washington Post without permission from supervisors. Many outside activities and jobs are incompatible with the proper performance of work on an independent newspaper.... All reporters and editors, wherever they may work, are required to disclose to their department head any financial interests that might be in conflict or give the appearance of a conflict in their reporting or editing duties.... It is important that no freelance assignments and no honoraria be accepted that might in any way be interpreted as disguised gratuities."
But these rules, seemingly strict on paper, are apparently more flexible in practice. "We tend to lean toward disclosure, but in this case we feel disclosure would not have been necessary," the Writers Group's Shearer wrote in response to criticism.
ACTION: Please let the Washington Post Writers Group know whether you think George Will's having received many thousands of dollars from the subject of a column is something that you believe that column should have disclosed.
CONTACT: Alan Shearer, Editorial Director and General Manager, Washington Post Writers Group, mailto:writersgrp (at) washpost.com
As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair (at) fair.org with your correspondence.
See the New York Times article on George Will's relationship to Conrad Black at http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1222-08.htm .
See George Will's column relating Conrad Black's views at http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will030403.asp .
See FAIR's account of George Will's history of conflicts of interest at http://www.fair.org/extra/0309/will.html
http://www.fair.org |
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