Advocacy Advice From Sue Kwon

Imagine this for a moment, if you will. Brain Williams has just done a repot on the Obama administration’s response to the Gulf oil spill and there’s a fare bit of criticism leveled at the White House.

Then Williams is out promoting his report and a podcaster asks him, “So, what can viewers do if they see this report and they want to work against the President’s plans and policies? What do you recommend?”

Williams then says, “Well, they can get involved with their local GOP. They can support grass roots efforts to unseat democrats at every level. They can volunteer and even give money to GOPac and of course there’s always the RNC, a great group. But the best idea would be to find local candidates who oppose Obama and all of his polices and really start there and work up to the federal level. This is not an easy thing. The Democrats have a lot of power right now with the House, Senate and the bully pulpit. They’ve got a lot of resources. So starting from a grass roots level would be best.”

What?

Brain Williams giving advice on how politically minded republicans can coordinate and mobilize to defeat the Obama agenda? That would never happen. Why? Because Brian Williams is supposed to be an independent journalist who isn’t supposed to give advice but rather, simply report the facts. Perhaps he might even abide by the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics which states that reporters should “Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.”

I paint this picture in order to draw the parallel between that patently absurd factitious scenario and this very real one.

This is CBS 5 consumer reporter Sue Kwon on a pod cast when asked what she “recommends” consumers do to “get involved” in the mercury in seafood issue:

• Question-- “What advice do you give to consumers who want to get involved and want to push for labeling on canned tuna…ahh… bring down the FDA’s requirement for mercury? What kinds of things can consumers do? I am sure there’s a bunch of groups or web sites or something they can check out and maybe get involved in. What do you recommend?”
• Answer—“There’s a great group if you are in the California area it’s called Turtle Island Network and basically it’s a non profit organization that is striving for this to help (inaudible) and they have a calculator, mercury fish calculator. They are also very involved with lobbying and being activists in this area. (inaudible) There’s also the…you first of all want to also talk to your doctor see if they have resources and places that they go for information and the latest… you know I… you always say talk to your Congress person… really this type of momentum is not happening there at that level yet. It would be at the FDA level and finding perhaps champions in your local area that are connected at the Federal level. And indeed tough because changing law in California is one thing, changing the way people approach this in each different city and each different state is another. And um the fishing industry is a huge industry and they have a lot of resources if you went on You Tube you could see within days they put high production pop ups all over it to counter all of these claims and in defense of them they have a very informational web site but it is very pro health food and pro fish….”

 Boy, it sounds an awful lot like she’s laying out a road map of resources who might be helpful in advocating for one side of an issue. That doesn’t sound very impartial to me.

 Let’s try it again:

• “What do you recommend?”
• “Well, I don’t recommend. I just report.”