Political blogger Andre Walker’s conflict of interest?
July 30, 2008 at 10:36 am by Ken Edelstein in NewsSEE UPDATE here.
A leading Georgia political blogger is being accused of conflicts of interest for doing work for politicians and failing to disclose it. The issue raises a couple of broader questions about ethical standards for political bloggers.
Atlanta Progressive News released an investigative article early this morning that details work done by Georgia Politics Unfiltered’s Andre Walker for U.S. Senate candidate Vernon Jones and incumbent Congressman David Scott, as well as a long list of favorable posts on Scott.
According to APN, in campaign disclosures:
The Scott campaign said he’s been receiving monthly payments since the beginning of 2008, suggesting he has received additional payments since the campaign’s last filing with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).
When asked by email what the payments were for, Walker refused to say and referred APN to the Scott and Jones Campaigns.
“I support many candidates and causes and in some cases, I have been paid for my work,” Walker wrote to APN in an email.
APN asked Walker whether he thought it was a problem he did not disclose to his blog readers that he was being paid by some of the campaigns at the same time that he was writing positive comments about them.
Walker replied he felt the campaign finance reports filed with the FEC were sufficient disclosure to his readers, even though those readers do not necessarily cross-reference FEC reports every time they read a blog entry.
“Responding to your question of disclosure, any funds that I have received from any candidate, organization or political party is public record and the public record is my full disclosure,” Walker said.
In May 2007, decaturguy wrote about a similar issue involving work Walker did in setting up a website for Vernon Jones. Walker addressed the issue on his blog after the decaturguy wrote about it, and my impression is that he’s covered the contest for the Democratic nomination for Senate in a fairly even-handed manner (Jones faces Jim Martin in an Aug. 5 runoff). I should also say that Walker’s style is relatively more straightforward and informative than heavily opinionated.
But APN says Walker hadn’t mentioned the work he did for Scott and published a long list of favorable-sounding headlines involving Scott that appeared on Walker’s blog.
In my mind, the article raises a couple of broader questions about potential conflicts of interest and disclosure for a lot of political bloggers.
For example, Walker — a state Democratic committee member — was credentialed last year as a journalist by the Georgia Legislature. Last I checked, he was seeking credentials to cover the National Democratic Convention this month in Denver. At what point should there be a differentiation between journalists who (presumably) avoid conflicts of interests and bloggers who may (or may not) be involved in the process?
Peach Pundit, the state’s leading right-leaning political blog (to which Walker contributes), is run by Erick Erickson, who’s done some political work and has been a candidate for public office. Erickson and other contributors have at times disclosed their dog in a particular fight when their writing touches on it. But what’s the standard for disclosure by political bloggers (or by bloggers about anything)?
For that matter, how can the average reader even tell who bloggers actually are when they use pen names like Rogue109 (another Peach Pundit poster) and decaturguy? It’s a principle of the blogosphere that people get to be anonymous. That may be an unavoidable part of the nature of the medium. But if influential bloggers are anonymous, how can you where there bread is buttered?
In a post this morning, Erickson says he knew Walker was doing some consulting work for Scott. He writes that he asked Walker “to refrain from writing about those he might be working against.”
It is our policy at Peach Pundit to refrain from writing about candidates we are working for unless we disclose that we are working for him. I apologize that this one got by me. It won’t happen again.
I’m trying to get a hold of Erickson, Walker and others to get some thoughts on this. Meanwhile, I’d love to get thoughts on this from other bloggers and readers.
Here are a couple of disclosures of our own: I’ve spoken to Walker in the past about possibly contributing to Fresh Loaf, but nothing came of it; we don’t allow writers to work for the people they’re writing about (except for, I suppose Creative Loafing) and our policy is to disclose anything that might appear to be a conflict of interest. Doesn’t that sound high and holy?
UPDATE: Walker says APN took money from candidates also.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I’m really surprised that Andre gets the readership he does since he drops the race card so much and everyone has known about his Vernon Jones conflict of interest for awhile now.
He’s always on his high horse throwing out his “credentials” as a way to somehow justify his often rediculous statements.
I’m glad he’s been called out on it at length again and I’d say that CL would face a massive decline in quality with the addition of Andre.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Political blogging is like the game of golf – self-regulated and refereed by (don’t spew your coffee too hard) code of honor.
If a blogger needs to be called-out for unwritten ethical violations, they typically ARE called-out… as in the case of APN investigating Walker’s source of funding/inspiration, a rather “open secret” it seems. Kinda like Valerie Plame’s covert status, you might say. Seems Mr. Cardinale at APN is simply playing the Robert Novak role in this matter, but I diverge…
Wal-Mart and Edelman PR also come to mind, in the failure-to-disclose, non-political blogging category. The examples are many, and fill vast fields of gigabytes in cyberspace.
Whether Walker will, ummm, blog in this town again, who’s to say? He’s tainted goods now. In the blogosphere though, tainted goods = something akin to a traffic-generating missile.
That and the fact that he works for Vernon Jones, so all bets, not to mention, ethics, are off, in that particular case.
Anyone dreaming of applying formal rules and regs and standards to the blogosphere, and I’m sure they are legion, well… good luck with that little endeavor.
Personally, I sure wouldn’t mind a little pressure in all the right places to “out” Rogue109 over there at PP, naturally enough. Anonymous blogging is nothing if not three miles of some seriously bad road.
Get an ATV or stay on the pavement. Vroom, vroom.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Thank you for picking up this story from APN. The blogosphere is a self-regulating arena so highlighting issues like this is helpful. I’m glad that APN did some investigation into the Walker/Scott connections. Let’s hope Mr Walker’s readers have the opportunity to learn about these inconsistencies.
Ultimately, a blog is like the living room of a friend or neighbor. You’re invited in to hear the bloggers’ opinions and those of other posters. At Blog for Democracy we encourage front page posters to disclose their affiliations/connections. Can’t say we are always successful, but we do try. Generally, I think it’s usually pretty obvious…
Have to agree with Josh – Mr Walker blogging for CL would negatively affect both the credibility and quality of CL online presence.
July 30th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I can give you a list a mile long of local bloggers who would be better additions to Fresh Loaf than Andre. He’s been a walking firestorm/lawsuit waiting to happen for awhile now. This couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy.
July 30th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
While not excusing Walker, it seems to me two sources of information – one that presents itself as “News” and the other that contains the opinions of the author – supported two different candidates in the same race.
Atlanta Progressive “News” was fond of writing hit pieces on David Scott while endorsing Donzella James for a $280 fee from the James campaign.
Georgia Politics Unfiltered did the reverse. Andre Walker accepted money to write glowingly of Scott.
The difference? The Georgia Politics Unfiltered candidate won. The Atlanta Progressive “News” candidate lost.
The only question is, did “Able” Mable Thomas get her money’s worth from Atlanta Progressive “News” considering the thrashing she got from John Lewis?
July 30th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Which still does not mitigate the fact that Andre took money from a campaign, wrote positively about that candidate and never disclosed it to his readers.
It doesn’t how questionable the ethics of the source are (and we’ve had no response from them yet), if the facts are as presented what Andre did was unethical. End of story.
But hey, nice effort at deflection. Always a useful strategy for campaign operatives. For people who believe in ethics and honesty in their writing? Not so much.
July 30th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I totally agree, Griftdrift. Saying the FEC filings were his disclosure is rather lame. He should’ve been open and upfront about the conflict, as in adding a disclosure to any post he authored about Scott. I also wish he would offer a detailed response to all this on his blog.
December 28th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
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