There’s an old fable that goes like this:
A frog and a scorpion sit on one bank of a river. The scorpion asks the frog if he can get a piggyback ride to the other side. The frog protests saying, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” “That’s ridiculous,” replies the scorpion. “If I sting you, we’ll both drown.”
Sure enough, half way across the river, the frog feels a sting in his back, “What are you doing!” he cries, “Now we’ll both die.” “I can’t help it. Its my nature,” replies the scorpion.
This tale may be going through the minds of some editors and managers at POLITICO. The prestigious Northern Virginia-based publication last year hired a man named Mike Elk as a labor and employment reporter for its new labor-focused beat.
The problem? Elk is a longtime activist for organized labor, a fourth generation union booster with direct ties to several unions. Elk has frequently written pro-union pieces for lefty rags like In These Times.
All of which made Elk a dubious choice for objective labor reporting for a prominent, straight-news journalistic enterprise like POLITICO. But they hired him anyway (which should tell you everything you need to know about the ideological leanings at POLITICO).
And now they feel the sting.
Last week, word made it around the Beltway that Elk had launched a serious effort to unionize POLITICO. He can’t help it. It’s his nature.
Of course Elk has every right to try and organize his workplace, and indeed has every right to support unions. Whether or not he should be and do those things while posing as a labor “reporter” is another matter entirely.
There are of course many facets to labor and labor-related news. But union issues are surely among the most prominent and controversial. And Elk’s actions in trying to organize his new newsroom prove he is incapable of even the appearance of objectivity in these matters.
Unfortunately for Elk, the Washington Post is reporting that he has thus far received almost zero support amongst his colleagues for unionization. Even so, it’s an embarrassment for POLITICO, which, as far I can tell, did nothing to inform its readers of Elk’s activist background and ideological bias.
All this couldn’t have come at a worse time. Americans have long viewed journalists as untrustworthy at best and shady, agenda-driven hacks at worst. Hiring Elk (who, by the way, was once openly hostile to POLITICO, writing, “I feel like u would have to pay me to read politico [sic].”) is just another reason for Americans to be suspicious of their news.
And then there’s Brian Williams, the face of NBC News, who recently had to publicly apologize for telling an apparently fabricated tale of his helicopter coming under fire during the Iraq war.
NBC News? POLITICO? These are not niche publications. They are elite news organizations of national and international reach, upon which millions rely for information. NBC and POLITICO aim to be, and claim to be, among the most trusted institutions in their business.
Elk and Williams have exposed them to be, at least in part, something else entirely: Hacks and liars. Or as Ken Auletta put it a tad more gently in the New Yorker, “We’re [journalists] unpopular, in part, because we don’t practice the transparency we preach.”
Quite.
Who do you trust? You may not know these days, but at least you know who you can’t trust.
Matt Patterson is the Executive Director of the Center for Worker Freedom, a special project of Americans for Tax Reform. Mpatterson.column@gmail.com.