(Newser)
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Former CNN and NBC anchor Campbell Brown is tired of people hammering her over her marital ties: Her husband, Dan Senor, is a Mitt Romney aide, and readers of her opinion pieces have raised concerns about disclosure. But to assume that her views are deeply intertwined with her husband's job "is lazy," she writes at Slate. "It is an intellectual crutch we grope for when we do not have an effective counter to someone’s argument."
In an opinion piece on President Obama, Brown disclosed her husband's job. In a more recent one on teachers' unions and sexual misconduct, she didn't mention her husband's charter school advocacy, which she says she didn't see as relevant. "These pieces represent my opinion and mine alone," Brown notes. She goes on to detail a range of differences of opinion between her and Senor—including her belief that "the financial industry is EVIL" and her support for Obama in 2008. At Gawker, Hamilton Nolan isn't having it. "Here's an extremely simple rule for journalists wondering when to disclose that they're married to an influential government official: always," he writes.
