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David Simon @AoDespair
, 11 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
Thread: Much argument has been made on behalf of the entrapped and entombed Sinclair journalists who presumably can do little but misrepresent themselves, their own opinions and even basic facts because of contractual obligations that penalize them for quitting those jobs. Well..
..I confess that I am suffering from a deficit of empathy. Not because the contracts are not draconian, but because I believe that for any journalist who wants to fight for their own integrity, the remedy is plainly obvious. Yes, it requires some struggle and some steel, but...
...my read of what has been revealed of the contracts does not suggest that there is any clause that declares that employees must convey their own on-air opinions or deliver reportage regardless of accuracy of fact. Would that the paperwork did so -- all the more humiliating...
...for Sinclair if it did. Instead, the contracts seem to cover such activity under the generalized heading of "insubordination." Fine, but any journalist with even a passing familiarity to the established ethos of the profession could sign such a contract and assume that...
...willfully misleading viewers cannot be acceptable or included under any such definition of insubordination. And that point could be argued in court, and well, with the help of civil liberty and labor attorneys. From Sinclair's perspective, the prospect of having their...
...journalistic ethics and contractual brutalities pried open by legal discovery and then aired openly in court, is little less than a fucking horror show. "Your honor, when I signed that contract, I had no idea that I would be called insubordinate for refusing to lie..."
...on camera to our viewers, claiming opinions to be uniquely my own that were dictated by the company for me to say, or citing facts and arguments that my own reporting cannot credit..." Point being that while it might be fair to say that Sinclair journos can't quit their jobs..
...without risking considerable penalty, it is too much to say they were so enslaved that their own consciences couldn't dictate an act of journalistic integrity. They could have refused to lie or misrepresent themselves on camera and the courthouse remedy remained for them. So..
..do not count me as someone who looks upon these Sinclair employees as being anything less than prostituted when they go on-camera and betray the basic ethics of the profession. Quit? Maybe not. Tell the truth? Definitely. The sunlight of open court was a road not taken.
And a last, small but basic sidenote: Anyone who doesn't now see why every journalist worth the name needs to be unionized is either a fool or a company hack.
And to be clear, I do not think journos taking this high road would be financially exposed. A multitude of civil liberty/labor orgs would lawyer them up pro bono for the chance to expose Sinclair in open court or through arbitrations.
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