Yeah, that's what I would think too.

But amazingly, this thought never occurred to Andres Martinez, the L.A. Times Editorial Page Editor who did agree to let a Hollywood producer, Brian Grazer, be the "guest editor" of the Sunday opinion section, and who was dating an executive of the public relations firm that promotes Grazer's production company and Grazer himself. This is the epitome of "the appearance of impropriety," a classic ethical no-no. The Times, which has one of the most extensive and strict Codes of Ethics in the business, states at the beginning of its ethics guidelines that "…in deed and appearance, Times journalists must keep themselves---and the newspaper---above reproach." And yet when the Times found out about Martinez' eyebrow-raising romance and appropriately canceled Grazer's section, Martinez resigned, playing the victim.

On his blog, Martinez wrote:

[Times Publisher]David Hiller's decision to kill the Brian Grazer section this Sunday makes my continued tenure as Los Angeles Times editorial page editor untenable. The person in this job needs to have an unimpeachable integrity, and Hiller's decision amounts to a vote of no confidence in my continued leadership…  I accept responsibility for creating this appearance problem, though I also maintain that the newspaper is overreacting today. We are depriving readers of an interesting, serious section that is beyond reproach, and unfairly insulting the individuals we approached to participate in this guest editor program by telling them it is a corrupt concept. How we come about this decision when 24 hours ago the managing editor of this newspaper was assuring me he didn't see a story after I walked him through the facts, and while Hiller maintains we did nothing wrong, is a bit perplexing.

This is called "accepting responsibility without accepting responsibility." [See: Gonzalez, Alberto, Attorney General] An "appearance problem" is a real problem for a newspaper, which must be seen as being independent and not manipulated because of personal, professional or financial relationships. Would the Times have approved Martinez' choice of Glazer as guest editor had he revealed his relationship with an executive of Grazer's P.R. firm? Never, and Martinez knows it and probably knew it when he made the decision. How can he now call pulling a section that never would have been allowed had he disclosed what the situation obligated him to disclose an "overreaction"? It would have not been an overreaction to fire Martinez for this; fortunately, his resignation makes that unnecessary.

In Martinez' final Times blog post, he details every aspect of the process whereby Grazer was chosen as the guest editor to show that there was no undue influence. That's nice, but irrelevant. He had a conflict of interest, and could not make that decision without it looking fishy and compromising the integrity of the newspaper. In fact, his insistence that he doesn't understand this instinctively is itself suspicious, so well-established is the ethical principle involved. It makes the Scoreboard wonder whether there really was illicit influence in the decision, with Martinez giving the plum to Glazer to help his girl friend. But we'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and just call him an Ethics Dunce.