Hannity got bashed so it’s only fair to bash the liberal ones, too

ana navarro, an anti-trump republican, cnn political commentator and a host on abc’s “the view,” speaks at last week’s democratic national convention.

For several semesters, Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity was a featured PowerPoint slide in my lectures on media ethics and conflicts of interest -- specifically, his speaking at a Donald Trump campaign rally in Cape Girardeau, Missouri in November 2018.

If you work in the news media, you shouldn’t play prominent roles in political activities. Your organization likely prohibits it, in fact.* This falls in the “duh” category of avoiding real or perceived conflicts of interest.

Commentators for various liberal news organizations and media watchdogs rightly took Hannity to task. Multiple Fox News journalists anonymously expressed their own outrage toward Hannity. In a vague and performative gesture to try not to appear blatant in its pro-Trump propaganda, the network issued a statement that it does not condone its talent participating in campaign events and that it had internally “addressed” the “unfortunate distraction.”

Move now to last week when CNN political commentator Ana Navarro served as host of the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night and political activist Al Sharpton, host of a weekly news talk show on MSNBC, was among the DNC’s speakers on Thursday night.

Neither network seemed to have a problem with this, and I didn’t hear or read any alarm from anyone who jumped up and down about Hannity six years ago. What’s the difference?

For one, slamming Fox News is (understandably) a favorite pastime of the liberal media. For two, Kamala Harris is a lot more politically tolerable to the liberal media than Trump. I’ll go further. The threats posed by Trump are so ominous that CNN and MSNBC may have felt justified to ignore traditional conflict of interest rules in order to boost the cause.

Or, to be more crassly practical, CNN and MSNBC may simply have wanted the status boost.

al sharpton, founder of the national action network and host of politics Nation on msnbc

I can offer some arguments why it’s not necessary to worry about journalism ethics here. Start with the question of whether news talk show hosts and commentators are journalists or merely opinion givers who don’t need to be neutral and can play by looser rules. To be even more insulting, maybe they’re just entertainers.

Also, bias that’s on public display is less troubling than hidden bias because at least the public can see it and take it into account when assessing the persuasiveness and credibility of TV talking heads.

Regardless, high-profile political activity by members of the media, even opinion givers, is bad practice. It moves from commenting on the news to influencing it.** It also allows the audience to think – in some cases correctly – that a politically involved commentator is actually just a PR agent for a candidate or a party, with no chance of ever offering a critical opinion, even if facts warrant one.

* Almost all news organizations prohibit not only participation in campaign events but also campaign donations, yard signs and bumper stickers, and other forms of political involvement.

** One of its stars speaking at a campaign rally is not Fox’s most egregious example of influencing the news off the air.