PRESS CORPS OBJECTIVITY….Michael Kinsley on the L word:
BM: What’s the biggest problem with campaign journalism right now ? particularly what appears on page A1?
MK: The biggest problem is ? and I don’t know what the solution is, so it’s not a criticism, as much as it is a puzzle ? is that the conventions of objectivity make it very difficult to say that something is a lie. And they require balance, which is often just not justified by reality. The classic thing is the Swift Boats. If you follow what all the papers say, they inch close to saying what they really think by saying, “it’s controversial,” or “many have challenged it,” euphemisms like that. And then they always need to pair it with something else. “Candidate X murdered three people at a rally yesterday, and candidate Y sneezed without using a Kleenex. This is why many people are saying this is the roughest campaign ever.”
Via an interview at Campaign Desk.
