The revolving door between media and government spins again with CNN's hiring of Sarah Isgur Flores
CNN recently announced the hiring of Sarah Isgur Flores to be âone of several editorsâ who will help âcoordinate [political] coverage across TV and digital.â
Though a CNN spokesman explained to news site Splinter that Isgur âis not leading, overseeing, or running CNNâs political coverage,â the new hire will undoubtedly influence the cable networkâs coverage of the 2020 presidential election.
Isgur has no professional journalism experience. But sheâs been active politically, which may have qualified her for the job.
Isgur most recently worked as the spokesperson for the Department of Justice, where she disseminated information about the departmentâs new policies under President Trump and Attorney General Sessions in order to inform and influence journalistic coverage.
With a Harvard law degree, and jobs at the Republican National Committee and on numerous Republican campaigns, she was a reliable purveyor of administration spin.
CNNâs hiring of Isgur immediately provoked criticism.
âElevating an unabashed partisan to a nonpartisan role is an obvious disservice to viewers at home, who count on the networkâs independence,â wrote attorney and GQ columnist Jay Willis.
Media history shows that CNN is simply repeating a time-honored journalistic hiring practice. The revolving door from the White House to mainstream journalism, and from mainstream journalism to the White House, has been used so regularly that we often forget just how common it was â and remains.
Prominent figures
The long list of political operatives who transitioned into journalism includes such well-known figures as Bill Moyers, William Safire, Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos.
Perhaps the most illuminating example of this transition is Moyers. While working as a special assistant and press secretary for President Lyndon Johnson, Moyers proved to be one of the administrationâs most antagonistic tacticians in dealing with the media.
In a memo he wrote about Vietnam War coverage, Moyers decried âthe irresponsible and prejudiced coverage of men like Peter Arnett and Morley Safer, men who are not American and who do not have the basic American interest at heart.â Arnett was from New Zealand and Safer from Canada.
Safer, the legendary CBS News reporter, never forgave Moyers for helping the Johnson administration smear him as a Communist.
FOIA records later revealed that Moyers helped hunt for homosexuals serving in the Johnson administration in order to protect the White House from embarrassing disclosures. Moyers has disputed that characterization.
Yet, for all of Moyersâ partisan political behavior, he would transition straight from the White House to become publisher of the Long Island newspaper Newsday in 1967. He joined CBS News in 1976.
Following in Moyersâ footsteps were several Republican political appointees.
Diane Sawyer easily moved from working for Richard Nixon to a job at CBS News without much criticism. William Safireâs hiring by The New York Times as an opinion columnist in 1973 sparked a firestorm of controversy both in the newsroom and from critics.
Safire had composed the most memorable phrases uttered by Spiro Agnew in that vice presidentâs famous attacks on the press. Just a few years later, he would win journalismâs highest honor â the Pulitzer Prize for his commentary on the Carter administration.
But not all the revolving-door examples would be as famous as Moyers, Sawyer or Safire.
In 1997, for example, David Shipley left a position as special assistant to President Clinton to join The New York Times as deputy op-ed page editor. Roger Colloff, who served in the Federal Office of Energy under President Carter, left the administration in 1979 to join CBS, where he would become a CBS News vice president with supervisory authority over all public affairs broadcasts, including â60 Minutes.â
Journalistic independence questioned
Isgur wonât simply be a columnist (like Safire) or reporter (like Moyers or Sawyer). Both Shipley and Colloff had previous journalistic experience; Isgur doesnât.
The danger critics identify is that Isgur, as an editor, could supervise and shape coverage in ways that might allow her evident political biases to go unchecked. CNN characterized her authority as limited, specifically noting that Isgur â"is helping to coordinate coverage across TV and Digital â she is one of several editors.â.â
Yet there are historical precedents for granting far more authority to former political appointees than Isgur will have.
Colloff went from the Carter administration to supervising all public affairs coverage at CBS, including the celebrated investigations of "60 Minutes.â
In 1961, James C. Hagerty moved from his position as President Eisenhowerâs press secretary to vice president of news, special events and public affairs for ABC. Thereâs little evidence that Hagertyâs ABC News management led to significantly more favorable coverage of Republicans, when compared to CBS News and NBC News, in this period.
Do these historical examples demonstrating the smooth interplay between American politics and political journalism apply in the Isgur case?
Todayâs context is different. Isgur comes from an administration that has vilified the press to an unmatched degree. President Trumpâs rhetorical attacks on the media, which have led to several violent and criminal acts, this line of thinking goes, should therefore disqualify administration appointees from working in journalism.
Thereâs some truth to the idea that President Trump is uniquely antagonistic towards the media. But heâs not the first high-level politician to be that way.
After more than four decades, itâs easy to forget the power and influence of vice president Spiro Agnewâs attacks on the media during the Nixon administration. And, even before that, at the 1964 Republican convention in San Francisco, the âright-wing rageâ directed toward the media shocked journalists.
Just as Safireâs defection from the Nixon administration to The New York Times raised the issue of hypocrisy, Floresâ parallel move incites many of the same questions.
Why would a Trump administration appointee even be interested in working for CNN, a journalistic outlet the president has accused of purveying âfake newsâ? Is the move an implicit recognition that the attacks on the media are exploitative, done primarily to rile a political base?
Questioning the coziness
Thereâs always been a close relationship between American political coverage and American political journalism â but to acknowledge it neither endorses nor excuses it.
The First Amendment guarantee of an independent press is philosophically grounded in the ideal of journalistic independence. When the revolving door is utilized, itâs healthy to criticize its use. Noting that political operatives might bring their biases to their coverage, critics can pressure these novice journalists to be more circumspect about their work.
Perhaps ironically, CNNâs public announcement of Isgurâs hiring provides a remedy for the networkâs critics of the hiring. Drawing attention to the move will help the CNN audience evaluate her work.
The audience plays an important role in safeguarding journalistic ethics in a democracy. If viewers watch CNN with a more skeptical and critical perspective throughout the 2020 presidential election, the network will be forced to respond.
Should coverage become detectably more in favor of the Trump administration, criticism spawned by vigilance will likely hurt CNNâs reputation for independence, its credibility and its ratings.
Thatâs a lesson liberals in the United States might learn from conservatives, who have complained about liberal bias for decades. Pressure often works.
In fact, itâs quite possible that such criticism ultimately elevated a person with no journalism experience to one of the most important and coveted jobs in the industry.
By Michael J. Socolow, Associate Professor, Communication and Journalism, University of Maine
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
