" Journalism ethics" is to many people a mysterious intellectual discipline, riddled with speciousness and ad hoc-ery, but every once in a while a transgression comes along that is so breathtaking in its obviousness that even journalists themselves can understand it. And when it entangles a moral paragon like Bill Moyers, it is all the more delicious.
Moyers, in addition to his many other priestly duties, is one of the nation's foremost documentarians on the issue of campaign finance reform, having climbed his pulpit at PBS more than once to "expose" the corrupting influence of filthy lucre in the nation's politics. This arrangement bemused Frank Greve, a reporter for Knight Ridder newspapers, and last week he did a little exposing of his own.
Greve discovered that when it comes to campaign finance reform, Moyers has a "triple role": journalist, advocate, and financier. For example, Moyers's last show on the subject, "Free Speech for Sale," which aired on PBS in June, opened with Moyers interviewing three campaign finance "experts." All three, it turns out, represent organizations that have received a total of $ 2.6 million from the Florence & John Schumann Foundation. And the president of the Schumann foundation is, but of course, Bill Moyers (at a salary of $ 200,000, by the way). Then there was "Washington's Other Scandal," a Frontline special in which Moyers announced that "the arms race in campaign money is undermining the very soul of our democracy." The show closed by referring viewers to the Web sites of the "best" reform groups -- most of them bankrolled by Moyers.
Needless to say, Moyers never discloses to his viewers that his "sources" are in effect on his payroll. But it's a nice scam St. Bill has worked for himself on the government's television network: Pay people to be advocates for your point of view, then give them airtime in your job as a "journalist." Maybe Moyers is right. Maybe money really is corrupting.
