So, Kevin Fischer has a blog, television gig, and works radio? I blame the media.

What’s wrong with Kevin Fischer’s multiple gigs as a Journal Communications’ community blogger, fill-in host for the Mark Belling show, and his television appearances on Interchange?

Certainly, from his point of view, nothing. As I’ve noted before, Fischer—and his boss Republican State Senator Mary Lazich—are simply using every available means they have to get their message out to the public.

In Fischer, Lazich has a skilled media player whose appearances undoubtedly help to elevate her profile to her constituents. Why would she or he object?

Unfortunately, the people who should be objecting are the same people taking advantage of Fischer’s willingness to be ubiquitous: the editors and producers of the local media that engages him. It's their integrity that's, ultimately, on the line when they use Fischer--who they have an obligation to be covering--as a content provider whose product ends up getting tied to their revenue.

The fact that few people working in the media appear to be troubled by Fischer’s high-profile assignments as pundit and commentator for Journal Communications, WISN, and Milwaukee Public Television says a lot about the sad state of journalism in our area.

It used to be that you could count on media organizations to help draw lines about who was reporting the news and who was creating the news. And while reporters have certainly crossed over to work in government and vice versa (Pete Williams, Chris Matthews, George Stephanopoulos all come to mind), I can’t think of an example of someone who, like Fischer, managed to operate in both journalism and politics as a government employee simultaneously.

At what point is Fischer an independent analyst and at what point is he just pushing an agenda in his role as a Republican Party apparatchik? Only Fischer could probably answer that question definitively, and he, of course, has very little motivation to do so.

I’ve asked Mark Maley, the editor of Journal Communications' NOW properties, on two occasions what standards he and his editors have in place to prevent either Fischer or Lazich from using their access to NOW readers as a vehicle for advancing their political agenda.

Strangely, Maley seems to have very little interest in the question. For example, he claims not to have even decided what he’ll do about Lazich’s blog if she has an announced opponent in the fall.

Distrust of the media is already high—it’s boggling that Journal Communications, WISN, and Milwaukee Public Television would actually choose to engender more of it by using Fischer as opposed to another, more independent voice.

In the end, Fischer’s own mouth might land him in enough trouble to at least end his gig as a blogger at the Franklin Now site. As James Rowen has noted, Fischer has yet to apologize for a post in which he referred to the DNR as the “Wisconsin wing of the Nazi Party”

If that doesn’t bother Maley, it certainly violates Lazich’s own standards. As she tells reporter Erik Gunn in the current issue of Milwaukee Magazine, “I don’t tolerate nastiness and name-calling.”

We’ll see. At least she's communicating some standards.

Whallah has more.