Last week I wrote a post on why journalists should disclose who they vote for in elections. As you might have guessed from the fact that almost no journalists do disclose who they vote for in elections, mine is still a minority view.
Such a minority view, in fact, that there’s still a debate raging (well, mildly raging) about whether journalists should vote at all. Politico.com has a three-way discussion about whether journalists should vote that’s worth checking out. My former Time colleague Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei make a well-reasoned case that they shouldn’t, a position I nonetheless believe is insane. (Simply put: not voting is not the same as being neutral, and few humans are powerful enough self-hypnotists to actually force themselves to be neutral even in their secret hearts.)
John F. Harris counters that they should–though he admits that he didn’t vote in the Virginia party, because that would have required publicly revealing his party affiliation. Which I believe likewise feeds a myth of neutrality that few intelligent readers believe in anyway. (Though at least he’s frank about the reason: “I don’t need the hassle.”)
But like I said, I’m in the minority, so check out what the Beltway journalists at Politico have to say if you want to see why.