Journalistic ethics

The Missourian ran a piece about two members of a committee which will be promoting propositions in the upcoming elections. The two members are fully qualified; both are intelligent, aware citizens and have prior experience with similar committees. The article, however was not a profile. The two members of the 30-member committee are newsworthy because they are both in the media business. One is an associate publisher of the Columbia Tribune, and the other is a general manager of a local TV station. The issue of journalistic ethics is one that fascinates me. It was probably my favorite part of J1100 (or would have been if I didn't have to memorize different models of ethics), and has been raised in J2100 as well. I'm not an expert, obviously, but I think there needs to be a questioning of the involvement of media members in city affairs. Yes, we want journalists to know what's happening in their community. Yes, we want them to be informed about issues like ballot propositions. But do we want them to be spreading their opinions? I, personally, don't think so. I think this is taking community involvement too far. Vicki Russell, who is the associate publisher of the Tribune, said, "If I weren't serving on the (ballot) committee, eventually some of the questions about how the committee would interface with the Tribune and how to get ads done would probably land on my desk anyway." Yes, and that's exactly the point. If your job will involve you in an issue, should you become publicly involved? Absolutely not. I will say that, in this case, there are complications. Both of the committee members are on the business/administrative sides of their respective news organizations, rather than the actual news aspect. Nonetheless, reporters and those more closely involved with the news will probably feel more able to get involved in city issues if their supervisors have. The other issue at hand is that Columbia is considered a small town by many (Coming from a town of 5, 000, I disagree with that, but ...). Where can you draw the line in a small town? Many citizens tend not to be active in such towns. How can the informed pass their knowledge on? I wish there was an easy way to answer the questions posed in this post, but since there's not, I hope people's intuitions lead them to ethical decisions.