Arianna Huffington's Ethics-Free Journalism

Arianna Huffington is a syndicated columnist. She is also co-founder and celebrity spokesman for the Detroit Project, an anti-SUV organization. Therein lies the problem. As a newspaper columnist, she is supposed to be an observer, someone who provides commentary on the social and political landscape. In her role with the Detroit Project, she is not an observer but an advocate and a fund raiser. Thus, Arianna uses her role as a columnist to highlight the specific issues for which she is simultaneously raising money through the Detroit Project. For example, in a current column, Arianna provides the State of the Union address she would like to President to deliver. Meanwhile, on the Detroit Project website, she is raising money to "Help Fund" the "real" State of the Union Address, i.e. to buy television ads to "highlight the issues...that should be part of Bush's speech." The Oregonian newspaper thought her dual roles as columnist and advocate-fund raiser crossed a line. So they dropped her column. Instead of trying to impose higher gas mileage standards on SUVs, perhaps Ms. Huffington should try imposing higher ethics standards on herself.