Today it was announced that David Sirota was hired by Senator Sanders campaign. I have no issue with that. Political journalists are going to be naturally engaged in politics and may “cross over” several times during their careers.
The issue with David Sirota is, according to the Sanders campaign, he has had an unofficial role for several months
Faiz Shakir, Sanders’s campaign manager, confirmed in an interview on Tuesday afternoon that Sirota had been in an advisory role prior to his hiring on March 11. “He was advising beforehand,” Shakir said, explaining that Sirota’s informal work for Sanders goes back months, and was meant to be a trial period to see how the senator, who famously likes to write every word that he says himself, would work with a speechwriter.
Atlantic
He had this role all while writing commentary critical of most of Senator Sanders opponents and yet he did not disclose he had this role. That is journalistic malpractice on his part and on The Guardian’s part. Given that Mr. Sirota deleted several thousand tweets soon after the announcement was made today it appears he knows that as well.
I will end this on some advice for any journalist out there — follow the standards of CBS Sunday Morning (my favorite “news” show). It includes interviews with authors, musicians, etc and anytime any of them have even a tenuous tie to CBS corporation or any entity related to it that is announced up front.
Update — John Mulholland, editor of “The Guardian” tweeted a rebuttal
“Re Atlantic piece on David Sirota 'If @IsaacDovere had contacted us before publication we could have corrected the reporting error in advance. Last piece by david Sirota for us, end of December. First discussion with Sanders was in mid January”
I have no reason to doubt that he is telling the truth — that once he was told the Sanders campaign reached out to David Sirota that they no longer gave him space in the newspaper. I do still have my doubts about how forthcoming Mr. Sirota was about when he was approached. I have those because of his tweet deleting frenzy today.
