Jon Keller's bias

I've always found Jon Keller's political analysis pretty friendly to Republicans without his actually coming right out and saying so. Typical of TV news, he tends to pose objective news sources against GOP propaganda and then split the difference.

His son's working for Ogonowski, which Keller didn't disclose. He's an insider, his son's an insider, and they both know it's an insider's game, so they don't see a problem. The rest of us, hoi polloi, would rather know a germane fact such as this, but our needs as news consumers are not paramount in today's media environment.

Though Keller claims ignorance of the need for disclosure, characterizing it (in paraphrase, anyway) as academic, only a true numbskull could have failed to notice previous calls for disclosure of conflicts of interest in all spheres of American life. Not that they are often heeded, but they are a social norm even if more honored in the breach.

Keller also evades the easy distinction between bias and conflict of interest. Bias is hard to prove; conflict of interest is objective. Reporting on a campaign your son is working on is an undeniable conflict of interest. If Keller were a purchasing agent dealing with a company for which his son was a salesman, his company would at least disclose this fact widely, not blandly back him the way his boss did.