Fox Newser Discloses Self Out of Job

When Time's not breaking news, we're making news! After last night's big Time 100 bash in Manhattan—which neither I nor fellow Timeblogger Lisa Cullen attended—a Fox News production assistant got her walking papers for telling Sen. John McCain she voted for him in the primary, reports TV Newser. (Link via Romenesko.) "I voted for you in the primary," she reportedly told the Senator, "you're going to win." The remark was caught on videotape; Fox reportedly took action promptly.

Mmmmmyeah. Because that incident just totally changed my perception of Fox News.

Seriously, this just goes to show one thing I've been saying about the journalistic fetish for keeping our voting preferences secret: it's about protecting the news organization, not serving the reader/audience. This was an embarrassment, and Fox punished the embarrasser; but does anyone out there think of Fox differently because of it?

(By the way, for those of you who have not yet read my broken-record disclosures, I wrote a column this year arguing that journalists should be allowed to disclose their votes, in which I noted that I voted for Barack Obama. Also, in 2000, I voted for McCain in the Republican primary in New York. At least I'm pretty sure I did, if he was still in the race at that point. I registered Republican that year specifically to vote for him in New York's closed primary.)