The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists have their own article up on the Journal Star’s severed ties with freelance cartoonist Paul Fell, with some misleading, inaccurate information.
The unsigned article reports:
The newsroom ethics code at the Journal-Star forbids political contributions by staffers who are involved in political coverage. A staff reporter at the paper who also made a political donation was allowed to keep her job after admitting she violated the ethics code and apologized. Fell, however, was let go.
(emphasis added)
The apparent double-standard presented by the article is a little less controversial when it’s pointed out that the Journal Star employee in question was not a staff reporter, as erroneously claimed in the AAEC article, but instead a copy editor. (I have e-mailed the AAEC website about this error, but as of 1:45pm Tuesday they have yet to correct the story. It may seem like an insignificant error, but I think the wording implies that Paul was held to an unfair double-standard, which would be much more pronounced if a reporter were involved.)
Regardless, this has been an interesting story to follow. Here’s the timeline so far, as covered in my previous two posts here and here.
June 22
MSNBC: The list: Journalists who wrote political checks
June 23
Lincoln Journal Star: Political contributions list includes two from Journal Star
June 25
Daily Cartoonist: Paul Fell loses gig after flippant remark about newspaper’s ethical policy
MSNBC: TV reporter who backed candidate is out
AAEC: Fell forced out of long-time Lincoln gig
And for those who think the Democrat to Republican ratio somehow proves the liberal media bias, check out this data from opensecrets.org regarding communications and electronics PAC contributions to federal candidates in 05-06:
Printing & Publishing:
27% to Democrats
72% to RepublicansTV / Movies / Music:
44% to Democrats
56% to Republicans