NBC's rules don't rule

Josh Marshall makes an interesting point about MSNBC's Olbermann fiasco.  If NBC has a policy against hosts giving to political candidates, why grant permission on a case-by-case basis?

...MSNBC's policy forbids employees from making donations to political candidates, unless they ask for permission to do so, in which (case) it seems usually to be granted. That seems to me to undercut the principle behind the policy. 

...Olbermann's job at MSNBC is to be an extremely opinionated commentator on politics. And he's the centerpiece (along with Maddow and more equivocally, Matthews) behind the business strategy of making MSNBC the liberal cable news/chat network. (How they square that with simultaneously having a more traditional and by the books NBC News is something they clearly have yet to work out.) But when you take that all into account, seeing him now all but canned over a handful of individual political contributions because he's compromised the objectivity he's supposed to bring to the job sounds like a bit of a joke.

This doesn't mean I don't see the point of rules barring people in the news business from giving money to politicians. I do. I think they usually make sense. And whatever the rules, organizations have the right to their rules and if you want to work there you need to follow them. But against the canvass of the media and political world we're living in and everything that's happening in it, the scale of MSNBC's response this seems bizarre, arbitrary and excessive. 

A reader amplified Marshall's point that a waiver undermines the original rule:

 "The strangest thing about MSNBC policy is the asking for permission part. Either you can give or you can't. Requiring permission implies that certain candidates or parties are acceptable and certain candidates or parties are unacceptable to management. Isn't it illegal for employers to go down that road?"

As the reader suggested, this exposes NBC executives to the charge that it may favor one kind of donation over another.  Either have a rule, or don't, or at least differentiate between employees, i.e., news and opinion anchors or contributors.  This way it's open and shut, not equivocal.

As in most things, I tend to be fairly liberal on this.  Let opinion journalists contribute, but require that they disclose it, particularly when interviewing that candidate. Open advocacy for a candidate may be less acceptable, but, in general, it's not unreasonable to assume that a liberal appearing on Maddow or Olbermann has at least their tacit support, so overt support is just a little further along the spectrum. Straight news reporters perhaps should be able to contribute as well, following the same guidelines about disclosure and, obviously, advocacy.  We "let" them vote, and we assume that, if they're doing their jobs, it won't get in the way of their reporting.  Why not let them contribute as well? Disclosure would make this transparent.  Of course, this is less clear-cut than allowing opinion hosts to contribute, but a case can be made for it.  Media companies have the right to determine these policies, but they should be clear, coherent and fair.