Reporters donate to politicians

Does anyone else see a problem with this picture?

A CNN reporter gave $500 to John Kerry’s campaign the same month he was embedded with the U.S. Army in Iraq. An assistant managing editor at Forbes magazine not only sent $2,000 to Republicans, but also volunteers as a director of an ExxonMobil-funded group that questions global warming. A junior editor at Dow Jones Newswires gave $1,036 to the liberal group MoveOn.org and keeps a blog listing “people I don’t like,” starting with George Bush, Pat Robertson, the Christian Coalition, the NRA and corporate America (“these are the people who are really in charge”).

According to the New York Times ethics policy:

Companywide, our goal is to cover the news impartially and to treat readers, news sources, advertisers and all parts of our society fairly and openly, and to be seen as doing so…

Does anyone else see a conflict of interest here?

UPDATE: Other bloggers see the problem too, check out some of the headlines:

1. MSNBC Confesses, “Maybe The Media Is Bias…”
2. The Next Time A Journalist Tells You That He/She Is “Impartial” And/Or Has “No Affiliation”…
3. The next time RTD’s Michael Hardy writes something…
4. Journos and Political Contributions
5. Unbiased Journalism Under Threat From Both Sides