We asked several colleagues how they think about political impartiality.
Kim Severson, a national food correspondent, considers the importance of applying the same rules to everyone in the newsroom:
You might think it doesn’t matter if a reporter profiling a chef or testing a new recipe campaigns for a school board candidate or goes to a rally, but it does. Every Times journalist, no matter how unrelated to politics our beats may seem, has to uphold the same standards of impartiality when it comes to politics. Anything that puts a dent in that standard hurts the paper and makes it harder for the reporters who work on the front lines of political coverage.
Elizabeth Dias, a national correspondent covering faith and politics out of the Washington bureau, puts readers ahead of what she does in her free time:
I don’t go to marches, though that’s the hobby du jour in Washington right now. When my friends point out that Americans have the right to free assembly, I agree. I just also think of another First Amendment right, freedom of the press, and that is my focus. Impartiality, for me, is not about hiding something I really think, or trying to keep my real views from being exposed. It is about trust. I think about my readers a lot. I want them to trust me.
Not attending a rally or a march is one thing, but what about voting — wouldn’t a neutral journalist decline to choose a candidate in order not to take sides? Mr. Corbett draws the line:
I think voting is a baseline action as a citizen. I wouldn’t feel comfortable suggesting that our journalists shouldn’t vote. But we don’t need them to go any further than that.
Some of our journalists, including our chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker, do go further, though:
As reporters, our job is to observe, not participate, and so to that end, I don’t belong to any political party, I don’t belong to any non-journalism organization, I don’t support any candidate, I don’t give money to interest groups and I don’t vote.
I try hard not to take strong positions on public issues even in private, much to the frustration of friends and family. For me, it’s easier to stay out of the fray if I never make up my mind, even in the privacy of the kitchen or the voting booth, that one candidate is better than another, that one side is right and the other wrong.
Stephanie Saul, a politics reporter, votes but has opted out of one part of the process:
For more than 25 years, my New York voter registration has been “no party.” It places me in the category of a swing voter, so I get lots of door-knockers trying to sway my vote.
There are many ways that journalists work to steer clear of politics in their personal lives, but doing so isn’t always easy or straightforward. Social situations can be particularly challenging. Hanna Ingber, a newsletter editor and the former editorial director of the newsroom’s Reader Center, grapples with how to approach the subject on dates:
These days, it can feel like politics is everywhere and everything is politically charged. Even dating apps ask for your political affiliation. It’s easy not to fill out that question, but what happens when a match asks about your views or which candidate you support? As a journalist, I struggle with how much to say — and prefer interrogating my dates on their opinions. Perhaps we need a policy on this: On Date 7 you are allowed to express your political perspectives.