Shock: Journalists Found Donating Heavily to Obama Campaign

Here in the waning days of this campaign for the White House, Politico reports that many journalists, editors, and news personnel have donated thousands to Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.

Politico gives us a long list of Obama supporters in the news biz. The first noted is The Wall Street Journal’s Paul Levy ($225), who calls Romney a “dangerous religious freak whose election will cripple America.”

Also supporting team Obama are the New York Daily News’ deputy managing editor for news Dersh Kuntzman ($250), ESPN Sportscaster Stuart Scott ($25,000), Reuters editor Joseph Graf ($250), Newark Ledger-Star photojournalist John Munson ($182.50), MediaCity editor Veronica Combs, Slate’s Katherine Goldstein ($252), Cyndi Stivers, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review and Columbia Journalism School faculty member ($250), and Bloomberg reporter Edmund Lee ($2,000).

This is, of course, just a tiny list. There are thousands of folks in the news and information business that consistently donate to Democrats and liberal causes.

Politico also notes a relative few who also donated to team Romney. That list includes Matt Walsh of The Observer Media Group, Don Madison who is a sports editor for ABC ($250), and Washington Times editors Brett Decker and Richard Diamond.

It goes without saying that the largest number of folks in the news business are big supporters of the left. There are stories like this every year showing that to be the truth. From the big leagues of the most powerful newspapers, magazines and cable and network TV, to the smallest backwater newspapers, the preponderance of folks in the news biz are supporters of left-wing causes and candidates.

But in a free society, the big question is one of liberty. Should “reporters” and folks in the news business be precluded from donating to whatever cause and candidate they want? One would think the answer to that would be “no.” But public disclosure is the cure to that dilemma. Journalists should be allowed to donate to whom ever they wish. But as consumers of the news, we should know when they do.

(Disclosure: My name might appear on an Obama donor list. Not because I donated money to support Obama, but because I bought a few political buttons from Obama’s campaign store just as I bought some from Romney’s campaign store and just as I did from McCain and Obama in 2008. I have a collection of political campaign buttons from every election since 1898.)