Even though their ethics guide states, that “reporters and editors should refrain from commenting in a partisan way about candidates or policy issues,” cat-meme giant BuzzFeed is letting those ethical guidelines fall to the wayside when it comes to coverage of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
When asked by his staff about what was permitted to post on social media about the Manhattan real estate giant and GOP presidential hopeful, BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith responded in a memo that “The goals of this policy (which is stricter with BuzzFeed News staff) are twofold: To preserve our readers’ confidence that we can be fair; and to not needlessly undermine the work of reporters on the beat,” and that Trump "is operating far outside the political campaigns to which those guidelines usually apply."
Smith continued:
It is, for instance, entirely fair to call him a mendacious racist, as the politics team and others here have reported clearly and aggressively: He’s out there saying things that are false, and running an overtly anti-Muslim campaign…BuzzFeed News’s reporting is rooted in facts, not opinion; these are facts.
Smith went on to say that BuzzFeed’s coverage:
reflects the facts of his campaign, and you aren’t going to get in trouble for stating them on Twitter. I would, though, steer away from suggesting his views are those of all Republicans or conservatives; Dick Cheney condemned him yesterday, for instance.
Whether you love or hate Donald Trump, he makes news - a lot of news – and any organization reporting or writing news is responsible for upholding the same ethical guidelines given to other political candidates. BuzzFeed isn’t the first “news” organization to go after Trump in such a biased manner. The Huffington Post relegated Trump to its “Entertainment” section, and just last month I wrote that a top Daily Beast editor called for a boycott on "neo-fascist" Trump.
The fact that these "news" organizations find it OKto disregard common sense ethical guidelines for a presidential candidate – a Republican one for that matter – should be alarming. What other stories have they turned an eye to simply because of their own disagreement on an issue or person?
That’s not news. That’s outright media bias.
