You may have heard about this elsewhere, but Matt Stoller sparked an interesting debate the other day by noting what appears to be a journalistic ethics problem posed by James Carville’s political commentary on CNN.
On Wednesday’s Situation Room, for example, Carville, a contracted CNN political commentator, offered some relatively mild criticism of Barack Obama. Carville said the Illinois senator was “less-than-impressive” at a recent health care forum, adding, “[Obama] needs to get up to speed on a couple of these issues.”
As Stoller noted, Carville is not exactly a neutral and objective observer of the Democratic presidential race.
What CNN doesn’t mention is that Carville is also sending out fundraising solicitations for Hillary Clinton’s campaign for President and is an advisor for her campaign. This is crazy. It’s just crazy. When CNN commentator Bay Buchanan took over the Tancredo campaign, she resigned from the network. This isn’t exactly the same situation, but the lines are thin. Carville isn’t getting money from Clinton, but there are other ways of compensation in politics and everyone knows that.
For me, it’s a straightforward disclosure/transparency matter. Forget the specific personalities — if a political commentator is raising money for one candidate, and criticizing that candidate’s rival on CNN, viewers should be made aware of the potential conflict of interest.
Yesterday, CNN declined comment, but Greg Sargent tracked down Carville directly and asked him about the criticisms. To his credit, he acknowledged the problem about how this appears.
It seemed that Carville saw at least a grain of merit in the case being made here. At one point, he said: “I think that I’m gonna be cognizant that if I criticize one of the Democratic candidates,” then he might mention that “I’m gonna vote for Hillary.” On the other hand, Carville also said that if he brought up his voting plans every time he said something critical of her rivals, it would make for “horrible TV.”
Of course, the problem isn’t with who Carville plans to vote for, but with who Carville is helping raise money for. The latter points to a formal, official role with one candidate’s campaign. How Carville votes behind a closed curtain is irrelevant.
Carville also said he thought the case that he was an adviser to Hillary was overstated. “I’m not an adviser to her campaign,” he said. “I’m not being paid by her campaign…I don’t get paid. I’m not an adviser.” Asked if he never advised the campaign in any way, Carville said: “Do I ever consult? No. I have a lot of friends [in the Hillary campaign]. I talk to them. But I have a lot of friends in the Obama campaign. And Edwards.”
I find this relatively persuasive. I know people who work for various candidates and sometimes we chat, informally, about the political landscape. That doesn’t create a conflict for me personally if I proceed to write about that candidate, because I have no role whatsoever with the campaign. Similarly, if Carville has casual conversations with various campaign staffers, that, too, is not the kind of relationship he needs to disclose on CNN.
But the real criticism here is that he was part of a recent Clinton fundraiser, using his name to appeal to donors for contributions. At that point, Carville may not be an “advisor” or “consultant,” but he’s certainly an advocate.
Carville acknowledged, though, that as a CNN analyst he shouldn’t have allowed himself to be featured as the author of a fundraising letter for Hillary. “To be honest with you, my contract at CNN says I’m not supposed to raise money [for Presidential candidates],” Carville conceded. He said he’d approved a stack of letters bearing his signature without checking them closely enough. “I approved it by mistake. It wasn’t Hillary’s fault, it wasn’t my office’s fault. I signed off on a whole stack. When CNN found out about it, they called me, and I said, ‘Call the Hillary people, tell them to take it down.’ Which they did.” No future fundraising for Presidential candidates while a CNN analyst, he promised.
Fair enough. There are some lines of journalistic objectivity and Carville seems to appreciate the fact that he crossed them.
I suspect by next week, Carville will probably say something like, “I’m a Clinton supporter, but I think Edwards….” It will be the right call in terms of transparency, but whether it constitutes quality journalism is another matter entirely. Carville has two hats — candidate supporter and neutral observer — that can’t be worn at the same time.