Render: Local editor's ethics higher than ABC

Over the years I have written any number of letters to the editor and guest columns for the Clovis News Journal, but I had no idea what writing a weekly column would entail.

link Rube Render

My meeting with the editor prior to starting was enlightening to say the least. We went over some ground rules and then Editor David Stevens informed me that at the end of my column he would append the tagline, “Rube Render is the Curry County Republican chairman.”

I told him that not everything I wrote would reflect the views of the Curry County Republican Party and that the column would not be the gospel according to the Republican Party, but the gospel according to Rube Render.

Stevens replied that I was, in fact, known throughout the county in the aforementioned capacity and he felt it should be so noted in the CNJ. He was correct in his assessment.

Would that ABC News had the same sense of journalistic ethics that the editor of a small Eastern New Mexico newspaper has.

George Stephanopoulos was communications director for the Bill Clinton 1992 presidential campaign, and after the election became White House communications director and then senior advisor for policy and strategy.

Four years later, ABC News hired Stephanopoulos as an analyst, assuring skeptical news people that he would not be doing any hard news reporting.

This arrangement lasted for a few years and, today, Stephanopoulos finds himself as chief anchor and chief political correspondent for ABC News, including hosting the Sunday morning show, “This Week.”

Stephanopoulos has never severed his connections with the Clintons and recently admitted donating $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation. The original skeptics were right.

The Stephanopoulos interview with author Peter Schweizer regarding his book “Clinton Cash” should be required viewing for all students of journalism as an example of the classic tabloid “hatchet job.” Not only does he ignore his $75,000 donation, Stephanopoulos also casts doubt on Schweizer’s fair-mindedness by asserting that he was a speech writer for President Bush. Left unsaid is that Schweizer was a speech writer for three months.

It pains me to point this out to CNJ readers, but the editor of the Clovis News Journal has a higher standard of ethics than ABC News leadership, who allow Stephanopoulos to continue the charade that he is a neutral journalist rather than a political operative.

Where are Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and Sam Donaldson when we need them?

Rube Render is the Curry County Republican chairman. Contact him at:

[email protected]