Media

Ron Brownstein: Disclosure or Conflict of Interest? – REDUX

June 6, 2005 /



Previously on Flap’s Blog:

Hugh Hewitt has this piece on the disclosure of Ron Brownstein, a national political correspondent, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and political analyst for CNN that his wife is now employed as an aide to Senator John McCain. The disclosure came at the end of Brownstein’s May 30th Washington Outlook column:

(Full disclosure: My wife recently took a job as an aide to Sen. John McCain [R-Ariz.], one of the judicial deal’s architects. Marriages that span the divide between the media and politics are common in Washington. They require both parties to draw a firm line between their personal attachments and professional responsibilities. I do not intend to treat McCain any differently as a result of my marriage, and my wife does not expect favored treatment for her boss. I certainly don’t expect any special treatment from McCain or his aides. Readers, of course, will have to make their own judgments, but I am confident that her new job will not affect my judgments, pro and con, about McCain and his initiatives.)

Now from L.A. Observed there is more:

At the end of his Monday column about Deep Throat and Watergate, Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz touches on Times political writer Ron Brownstein’s marriage to the communications director for State Sen. John McCain.

Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus says the couple is in Paris and “we decided not to stop the honeymoon to have the argument” about “where the right boundaries are” for Brownstein. “We’re all agreed that Ron can’t cover McCain per se,” but McManus sees no problem with Brownstein writing a story “if McCain’s name comes into it in a minor way. . . . We think Ron is the best political writer in the country and don’t think it’d serve the nation or our readers to take him off politics.”

Flap doesn’t care how well Brownstein writes. He has a conflict of interest and should step down from his current beat – or the Los Angeles Times should reassign him.

Will John Carroll have the integrity to initiate the reassignment or will he defer to Kinsley?