As Dan mentioned earlier, David Postman at the Seattle Times spilled more than 700 words this morning on the subject of whether Impartial Journalistic Ethical Objective Journalistic Journalists should be allowed to participate in presidential caucuses, vote, or express even innocuous political convictions.

Unlike Dan, though, I do care about this policy—because it’s outdated and unrealistic, and it needs to go.

Postman writes:

Management says people involved in political news should not participate at all and others are strongly discouraged from doing so and told to inform their supervisor if they plan to take part in either the Feb. 9 caucus or Feb. 19 primary.

Executive Editor David Boardman has posted a note about the subject on the Times internal Web site. Management’s position relies on the Times Code of Ethics section on political activity, which begins with this:

Our profession demands impartiality as well as the appearance of impartiality. Public political activity puts that at risk, and is discouraged.

It also says:

Staff members should avoid active involvement in any partisan causes that compromise the reader’s trust in the newspaper’s ability to report and edit fairly. Public political activities that may raise concerns include contributing money, signing petitions, wearing political buttons, displaying bumper stickers, publicly espousing a cause, or participating in demonstrations.

Ugh. Are we really still having this debate? OBVIOUSLY, Times journalists aren’t impartial—they’re human, right? And presumably somewhat well informed?—so the first part is ridiculous on its face. As for the second part: What does management do—police the parking lot to make sure nobody has a “Hate is not a family value” or “Love your mother Earth” sticker on their car? It’s pretty unrealistic to think that reporters who cover politics have the ability to do so without forming opinions about the people and races they cover. I realize this has been Times and P-I policy for ages, but this hotly contested—and highly emotional—presidential election could have been an opportunity for the dailies to reform their outdated, unrealistic, ethics policies. Instead, the Times used it as an opportunity to parade an above-it-all superiority that has never existed except in management’s minds.

Incidentally, the Stranger does not, as far as I know, have an official policy on political participation, but informally, we’re encouraged to participate, caucus, vote, support candidates, argue, and have political opinions. I can’t imagine what the office (and this blog) would be like if we couldn’t. Boring, I guess, if the dailies’ blogs are any indication.