Is Canzano being unethical?

Could have.

Did you break a sweat figuring out that convoluted arrangement? You should consider a career as a Wall Street consigliere, given your creativity at blurring a money trail.

But if this hypothetical tracks-covering was how it was done, why deal with Allen's station at all? Why not stay at the old station, or go to some other operation in the Portland market? Because if Allen's station offered the best deal, then maybe a portion of the offer above the next-highest bidder was the chance to co-opt the Oregonian's premier sports columnist. Could be, to use your words, the show was only worth X amount but Allen's station paid a premium to have its hooks, however slight, into an allegedly legit journalist.

Any financial relationship between a journalist and someone he or she covers is out of bounds. People already think we can be bought for a free steak dinner. Why even go there? That newspaper's top editors are either asleep at the switch or are harboring a miserable double-standard. The reporter who lost his stripes over a free parking space, and all those in the newsroom who were expected to see that punishment as meaning something, probably are real impressed with the blind eye turned toward this nonsense.

Also, if you take your approach to the nth degree, then Canzano is buying the air time, selling the ads, supervising staff . . . and, oh sure, giving the same 100 percent effort to the Oregonian that he used to.

 

Well, at least now we have the rules of the game.
According to the board, Canzano is sleazy and unethical.
And anyone who works on Wall Street might as well be in organized crime.
And everyone here save for Mizzou, Farrar and, oh yeah, me, is lined up behind Mother Theresa and Al Gore on the road to sainthood.

 

Behind Al Gore maybe, but only because we can't get around his ass. And we stepped over Mother Theresa.

 

I don't know Canzano, and I don't think what he did is sleazy. $80,000 is a lot of money. Any of us here would, at least initially, try to justify accepting that kind of money - especially if you have a family. But in the end, it's wrong. He's compromising his integrity by accepting a paycheck from the same organization he covers. There's just no rationalizing that, no matter who the reporter is, no matter which paper it is, no matter who the owner is, no matter how much money you're talking about. It's a clear conflict of interest.

 

Makes the food-in-the-press-box debate look like chump change, eh?

And for the record, W_B, this time I agree with you

 

Sequiter, meet non.

 

Quoting the board directly, Dools.

 

Yes, Twoback is correct. That post wasn't a non-sequiter.

It was a red herring.

 

This whole thread is a red herring.
What's next? If you take a job, you have to check and see who the major stockholders are in the company?
"Oh, sorry, the Poynter Police say you can't work for them. Looks too cozy. Either that guy divests his shares or you go sell shoes at Payless."

 

I'd be happy if they'd just check who the CEO is. And if it's the guy who owns the team you cover, say thanks but no.

Frankly, I can't believe this is even an argument. But apparently it is.

 

I think it is deeply disheartening that anyone concerned about ethics in this business is dismissed with a dumbass phrase like "Poynter Police." Simply employing that term is an admission of your total failure to grasp the issue.