AP and AFP reporters on Payroll of Palestinian Authority

The Case of the Moonlighting Journalists.

Via Honest Reporting: One of the cardinal rules of responsible journalism is the independent status of the journalist ― while journalists may belong to political parties, they cannot actively work for a party relevant to the sphere they cover, lest their independence and neutrality be jeopardized.

The Jerusalem Post reported that two of the largest wire services ― Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Associated Press (AP) ― have employed journalists with inappropriately close ties to the Palestinian Authority. Majida al-Batsh was a Palestinian affairs correspondent for AFP for many years, while simultaneously being on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority as a reporter for the PA's official organ, Al-Ayyam.
This is the equivalent of a network's Washington correspondent getting paid on the side by the Democrats or Republicans. Imagine the scandal that would produce. Yet with their coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, AFP and AP don't seem to have a problem with it.