Journalism 101: Steak & Ethics

So, last night, Jenn used the same seasoning on our steaks that senior management at Hesperia city hall (Code Enforcement’s Tom Harp, as I recall) used at last week’s annual employee cookout (see the photos at the bottom of A3 in this week’s paper). The steak they cooked smelled so good, but I was ethically prohibited from having any that was offered.

The theory goes something like this:

I cover Candidate A’s fund-raiser and he’s serving something not-great. Let’s say Sbarro Pizza, which is possibly the worst pizza available in every mall on the planet.

A few days later, I cover Candidate B’s fund-raiser. (It’ll get like this later this summer.) Candidate B is serving steak. (In fact, two years ago, Councilman Dennis Nowicki had former Hesperia Chamber of Commerce President Mark Lawson making his tri-tip, which I know for a fact is fantastic, and my stomach growled so hard smelling it, I had to flee the area so I could concentrate on my job.)

The next week, I write an article about the election and supporters of Candidate A hate it. (Experience says that the supporters of Candidate B will also hate it, but that’s not important in this discussion.) They then decide I was unduly influenced by Candidate B’s steak.

Now, I know where to get steak. I can grill steak myself. (I did so last night.) If I could be influenced, it’d take a hell of a lot more than steak. But it’s not worth the headaches of getting slammed for bias when it’s something I can avoid by just not eating the steak. Or the Sbarro pizza, for that matter.

This has turned into a bit of a running joke with officials in Hesperia, who now like to taunt me with things like the steak at last week’s cookout, knowing I won’t eat it. But it’s just not worth the hassle of eating it.

(I notice that ethics don’t prevent me from ever doing anything unpleasant: “Well, Congressman, I’d love to clean out your gutters, but my ethics mean I have to reluctantly decline.”)

There is one exception to all of this: Since the Star is a member of the chamber of commerce, there’s no problem with me eating chamber food in my capacity as a chamber member. So Lawson, who’s having a mixer in July where he’s serving tri-tip again, I believe, will see me chowing down on his awesome tri-tip. But if there ever was a question as to how I was covering the chamber, and why, I’d cut that out, too.

Of course, there’s nothing stopping me from asking, say, Tom Harp as to what was done to prepare the steaks at the cookout and doing the same at home. (Nice thick steaks, McCormick’s Montreal Steak Seasoning, high heat, and turning the steak just once to sear it and seal in the juices.) And man, they were damn good.

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