$8,000 in GOP Donations
The Gray Lady announced over the weekend that William Kristol has been added to the paper's roster of Op Ed page columnists. Here's some minimal background from the Times' announcement on his political activities and journalistic endeavors:
He is editor and co-founder of The Weekly Standard, an influential conservative political magazine, and appears regularly on Fox News Sunday and the Fox News Channel. He was a columnist for Time magazine until that relationship was severed this month.
Mr. Kristol, 55, has been a fierce critic of The Times. In 2006, he said that the government should consider prosecuting The Times for disclosing a secret government program to track international banking transactions.
In a 2003 column on the turmoil within The Times that led to the downfall of the top two editors, he wrote that it was not “a first-rate newspaper of record,” adding, “The Times is irredeemable.”
In the mid-1990s, Mr. Kristol led the Project for the Republican Future, an influential policy study group. Before that, he was chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle.
That limited effort at disclosure and transparency is all fine and good, on the surface, but one thing that troubles me is what the Times omitted -- Kristol's political donations. A search of Federal Election Commission records shows Kristol has given $8,000 since 1993, all of it to GOP candidates and an anti-abortion 501(c)(4) organization.
KRISTOL, WILLIAM
WEEKLY STANDARD/EDITOR
ALLEN, GEORGE (R) Senate - VA
FRIENDS OF GEORGE ALLEN
$250, general 07/10/06KRISTOL, WILLIAM
NEWS CORPORATION
ABRAHAM, SPENCER SENATOR (R) Senate - MI
ABRAHAM SENATE 2000
$1,000, primary 12/23/98KRISTOL, WILLIAM
NEWS CORPORATION
ABRAHAM, SPENCER SENATOR (R) Senate - MI
ABRAHAM SENATE 2000
$1,000, general 12/23/98KRISTOL, BILL
WEEKLY STANDARD
SUSAN B. ANTHONY LIST INC. CANDIDATE FUND
$500, primary 02/23/98KRISTOL, WILLIAM
MILLER, JAMES CLIFFORD III (R) Senate - VA
MILLER FOR SENATE (1996)
$500, primary06/06/96KRISTOL, WILLIAM
WATTS, JULIUS CEASER JR (JC) (R) House (OK 04)
WATTS FOR CONGRESS (1994)
$250, primary 01/17/95KRISTOL, WILLIAM
MC LEAN, VA 22101
PROJECT FOR A REPUBLICAN
VIGILANTE, KEVIN (R) House (RI 01)
KEVIN VIGILANTE FOR CONGRESS
$250, general 09/30/94KRISTOL, WILLIAM
PROJECT FOR REP'LICAN FUT
LONGLEY, JAMES B JR (R) House (ME 01)
LONGLEY FOR CONGRESS '96
$500, general 09/30/94KRISTOL, WILLIAM
PROJECT FOR REPUBLICAN FUTURE
MCINTOSH, DAVID MARTIN (R) House (IN 02)
DAVID MCINTOSH FOR CONGRESS
$750, general 09/30/94KRISTOL, WILLIAM
PROJECT FOR REP'LICAN FUTURE
LONGLEY, JAMES B JR (R) House (ME 01)
LONGLEY FOR CONGRESS '96
$250, general 08/15/94KRISTOL, WILLIAM
PROJECT FOR THE REPUBLICAN FUTURE
ABRAHAM, SPENCER SENATOR (R) Senate - MI
ABRAHAM FOR SENATE (1994)
$1,000, general 08/12/94KRISTOL, WILLIAM
PROJECT FOR REPUBLICAN FUTURE
MCINTOSH, DAVID MARTIN (R) House (IN 02)
DAVID MCINTOSH FOR CONGRESS
$250, general 06/23/94KRISTOL, WILLIAM
BRADLEY PROJECT
ABRAHAM, SPENCER SENATOR (R) Senate - MI
ABRAHAM FOR SENATE (1994)
$1,000, primary 06/26/93
Staff members may not themselves give money to any political candidate or election cause or raise money for one. Given the ease of Internet access to public records of campaign contributions, any political giving by a staff member would risk feeding a false impression that we are taking sides.
5 comments:
William Kristol's gig at the NYTimes: the reality of history has been replaced by the publicity of history.
It's pathetic -- another instance showing that the NYT is not the liberal edifice that wingnuts like Kristol claim it is. And has Kristol ever been correct (although Right) about anything?
I'm not sure I see the issue here.
*Bill Kristol supported GOP/conservative candidiates in the past.
*Bill Kristol has criticized the NYT in the past.
*Bill Kristol is hired to write OPINION pieces for the NYT.
How the $8000 in prior donations is relevant escapes me. Holding him to an ethics clause for what he did in the past?
If he was hired to be an Op/Ed page EDITOR or to exert direct decisions upon the news content (i.e. non-opinion), I'd say there might be some relevance.
But the NYT chooses to place him 'on staff' to garner a (likely) negotiated number of columns that are sure to have a opinion contrary to most of the others on the staff (Dowd, et.al).
Should my current employer not have hired me because ethics requires them to apply their 'no-compete' clause retroactively?
Besides the fact that Kristol is being hired specifically because he has conservative views, he won't be an employee of The New York Times. He's merely a contracted contributor.
So since he isn't a "staff member" there's no reason to think he's subject to the Times' ethical guidelines.
If the Times were to exclude opinion content from anyone who has contributed to partisan causes, the paper may as well not bother to have any opinions in it at all.
After all, what's the point of having opinions if you can't back them up with some bucks?
I also don’t see the issue. The Times hiring another conservative columnist is like Paula Deen adding a pound of hog lard to her deep fried blubber fat.
And talking about ethics in the media is hopelessly naïve. The major media are controlled by oil, war, and commercial interests. Their job is not to inform or educate, but to create the consumer: selfish, heartless, and ignorant. Commercial writers are paid to keep the focus on trivia, which they can easily do, because they’re mostly dingbats. It’s a giant hick fest, and smart people are not allowed.
No matter which side of politics it comes from, editorial is moronic. Entertainment is low culture trash. And news reporting is shallower than Prince Charles’ gene pool. Hello. That’s the commercial media. And it’s not going anywhere.
I would rather talk about people with integrity who are at least trying to act responsibly. They’re few and far between. But that's more fun.
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