This is a difficult subject, but it’s something I’ve long pondered. A job is a job and you sometimes have to take what you can get, because - as many here know - they're not always easy to get. But can that past position taint you in the future if you wind up working somewhere else?
 
Here are a few examples that illustrate what I mean:
 
John Roberts, FOX News - The former MuchMusic DJ reached the loftiest heights you can in U.S. news, as the White House correspondent for a major network. But if he were to, say, come back to Canada and join CBC or CTV, would his previous post and the network he worked at make it impossible for you to take him seriously? I knew “J.D.” as he was then known when he was working in Canada. He’s a great guy and he was a good news person. Has he forever lost the ability to switch teams simply because of his association with a hard right leaning TV network in the U.S.?

Or if you lean right, would another Canadian like Ali Velshi’s work with a more left-leaning newsroom like NBC make him hard for you to trust?
 
Tony Burman, former Toronto Star columnist - He was a professor at Ryerson’s School of Journalism, a former Toronto Star columnist and once the head of CBC News. But he also served as the head of Al Jazeera’s English network for many years, a station many critics say promotes terror groups and is virulently anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. (For a time, it was also the place where a terrorist video or manifesto seemed to turn up first.)  I always read everything he wrote with a great deal of skepticism because of his past association with them and I could never shake that past job, despite his otherwise impressive credentials.
 
Jennifer Hsiung, CP24 Morning Co-Anchor - Her resume lists a number of impressive accomplishments, ranging from news correspondent, stand-up comic, sports reporter and even event emcee. But she also spent 10 years in Beijing working for both CCTV and CGTN, TV services run and controlled by the Chinese Communist government, which is notorious for using all media for both censorship and propaganda purposes. She was born and raised in Toronto and is back here now working for Bell Media. Does the decade she spent toiling for an admitted arm of the Communist government hurt her credibility as you watch her every morning? Or is that just a job she did and now she has another one?
 
 It’s a dicey question - should you be judged by the places you’ve worked before or is getting a gig just getting a gig, and you can always start again? Frankly, I often find it almost impossible to forget where some of those mentioned above used to be (or in Roberts’ case, still is) - and that affects how I see them now.

Can you look beyond “the way they were” or does that factor into your judgment as you watch or read them now?