Wall Street Journal Memo Strictly Prohibits Staff Political Activities

[Merlin]

My friend who is a journalist with the WSJ and has enormous respect for its journalistic integrity (but detests its editorial page management and general political position) sent me their internal memo from management of the journalism side of the iron curtain that divides it from the editorial side:

...(the) Dow Jones Code of Conduct includes specific restrictions on political activities by members of the news staff. The text of this section of the Code is attached to this memo, and I’m urging everyone to reread it, to reinforce our obligation to comply with these restrictions.

The key sentence on political activities is, “All news employees and members of senior management with any responsibility for news should refrain from partisan political activity judged newsworthy by their senior editor . . . .” Partisan political activity includes passing out buttons, soliciting campaign contributions (even from friends or relatives), hosting a fund-raiser for a Presidential candidate or a local congressman, as well as making a financial contribution to a candidate’s campaign. Individual financial contributions to candidates for national office are reported by their campaigns to the Federal Election Commission, and it is a fact of life that these contributions are regularly the subject of news articles. The point of such articles is to raise the question of whether a newspaper covering an election can be fair when one or more of its reporters or editors have contributed money to one of the campaigns. Therefore, it continues to be our position that news staffers cannot, under the Code, contribute to campaigns for national or statewide office or for local offices where candidates are affiliated with national parties.