this article talks about Bryant Gumbel, who is a Burning Tree member:
(copied from the thread, "Liberal Media Takes Yet Another Shot at Hootie")
Just saw this article in today's Chicago Tribune. It seems the liberal media, once again, has a double standard (remember the New York Times editorial issue?):
GUMBEL FANS ON AUGUSTA
by Ed Sherman
December 20, 2002
The Augusta National Golf Club issue is like a big octopus. Its many arms keep reaching out to bring new people into the controversy.
The latest is Bryant Gumbel.
The current installment of "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" features his interview with Martha Burk, the head of the National Council of Women's Organizations and Augusta National's recurring nightmare. The show had its HBO debut Tuesday, with numerous replays set throughout the weekend and next week.
The subject, of course, was Burk's quest to get the all-male club to bring in women members. Much ground was covered on this complicated issue. However, one notable piece of information was missing.
Gumbel did not disclose on the air that he is a member of Burning Tree Club, an ultra-exclusive all-male club in Bethesda, Md.
Its membership roll includes several high-ranking officials in Washington.
Burk said Gumbel informed her of his Burning Tree membership during a break in filming their piece.
"I told him it is the wrong kind of statement not only to the public, but also to your own daughter," Burk said Thursday of their off-camera discussion. "It makes the wrong kind of public statement for a person in his position."
Gumbel's membership, however, wasn't brought up when the cameras began rolling again.
At first, Burk speculated that perhaps Gumbel "knew what I would say." Later, Burk said she couldn't speak for Gumbel's motives.
The question is: Should Gumbel have told viewers of his membership at Burning Tree? The answer is an emphatic yes.
Journalists try to avoid conflicts of interest all the time. It is one of the cardinal rules of the profession.
Gumbel clearly had a conflict. The person interviewing the chief critic of an all-male club also is a member of another prominent all-male club. The viewer had a right to know.
As always, Gumbel asked direct questions during the interview. Watching for the first time, there's no reason to assume he had any other agenda than doing a good story. Burk noted the most heated debate didn't concern Augusta. Rather, the bigger disagreement is whether sex and race discrimination can be compared.
But watching it again, after learning of Gumbel's Burning Tree membership, a different perspective forms. For instance, there is a moment when he says to Burk, "Because [Augusta's Hootie Johnson] chooses to protect the rights of the club doesn't necessarily make the man a sexist."
Later, Gumbel asks, "Why all this hoopla" so one rich woman can get into Augusta?
It is easy to see how those questions could be viewed differently if you know Gumbel has a locker at an all-male club. Do those remarks mean he favors Augusta's position, or is it the means for an effective interview?
HBO President Ross Greenburg, who ultimately decided to keep Gumbel's membership out of the piece, calls the issue "an unbelievable case study in journalism." He says the network struggled over whether Gumbel should have revealed his personal situation.
Greenburg says his first instinct was to disclose Gumbel's membership, but Gumbel and the producers talked him out of it. They said it would give the viewers a predisposition to the questions and serve as a distraction to the piece.
Greenburg, the network's spokesman on the issue, remains ambivalent with the decision.
"I still struggle with it," Greenburg said. "Ideally, you want a journalist with nothing in his background to ask the questions that need to be answered. However, there's a personal life to every journalist in America. We all have certain things in our private lives that raise our level of consciousness."
If those instances turn into conflicts, either another person should be assigned to do the piece--the best alternative--or there should be a full disclosure. On a larger scale, it happens more and more with media companies disclosing on the air or in print their ownership in an enterprise on which their news outlet is reporting.
Greenburg gives Gumbel complete support for how he conducted the interview, calling it "down the middle." He says he considers Gumbel one of the best journalists in the business. That should have been another argument for complete disclosure.
Given Gumbel's reputation, the viewer deserved all the facts to make an accurate assessment of the interview. His membership at Burning Tree needed to be put on the table.