index 8174, Rieder: Why Stephanopoulos flap matters

The revolving door between politics and journalism and sometimes right back again has been spinning for a very long time. Journalism depends so much on credibility. The recent Brian Williams scandal reminds us that this is not simply an academic issue. Politicians and political operatives are all about the spin. Their mission isn't to get as close as they can to the truth. It's to win elections. Which means casting everything in a light most favorable to their prospects. Not the finest or most appropriate credential for truth-seeker. "One day they are calling journalists to spin them to write favorably about their prominent political patrons and the next minute they are sitting at the table with journalists and indistinguishable from the journalists," the late David Broder, an outstanding Washington Post political reporter who loathed that spinning door, once told American Journalism Review. Yet there are people who have overcome their substantial political baggage and made that transition in a most impressive way. None more than the late Tim Russert, a onetime aide to the late New York Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Russert became a sterling host of NBC's Meet the Press. Another political player who seemed to have successfully navigated those treacherous waters was George Stephanopoulos. I thought it was a truly bad idea when the former top aide to President Clinton, a hugely partisan figure, became a news analyst for ABC back in 1996. But Stephanopoulos, now ABC's chief anchor, host of its Sunday morning political talk show This Week with George Stephanopoulos and co-anchor of Good Morning America, turned out to be a pleasant surprise, shedding his political warrior past and showing journalism chops. The recent revelation that Stephanopoulos had donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation between 2012 and 2014 not only raises serious questions about his judgment. It also disqualifies him from having anything to do with covering the 2016 presidential race. He has already said he won't moderate ABC News' Republican primary debate in February, which is a start. So far ABC is standing firmly behind its embattled anchor. But it's early in the saga, and that could change quickly. Regardless, there is no way he should allow himself — or be allowed — to deal in any way with a contest in which Hillary Clinton is the overwhelming favorite to become the Democratic candidate for president. Exhibit A of why that is the case came on April 26, when Stephanopoulos aggressively grilled Peter Schweizer, author of the book Clinton Cash, which is critical of the Clinton Foundation. Stephanopoulos failed to disclose that he was a benefactor of said foundation. But even if he had, that would hardly have eliminated the problem. The issue is the donations themselves. Making them would be inappropriate for any political journalist. But it's particularly crucial for a former Clinton consigliere. Even though he had had a public break with the Clintons, Stephanopoulos of all people should not be giving money to anything having to do with them. What was he thinking? Sure, the foundation is a charitable enterprise. But all things Clinton tend to be closely intertwined. And there has been no shortage of suggestions that people have been ponying up to the foundation to curry favor with the Clintons, one of whom is a potential next president. There are lots of worthy causes out there with no links to Hillaryland. One key point: Stephanopoulos' role — and that of his network, for that matter — are very different from the jobs and the forum of the ex-candidates who have made Fox News a full employment act for failed GOP presidential aspirants. Fox is a political force. ABC News is not. Stephanopoulos' apologies have not been reassuring, certainly not the initial one. He first said he should have told his employer and his viewers about the donations, which are a matter of public record, not that he shouldn't have made them. He later conceded that the donations were problematic. For someone so politically and journalistically astute, this was a boneheaded — and totally tone deaf — error indeed.