Cooper Doing What He Does Best

Marc Cooper, Progressive, Pundit on all things Leftish and all around nice-guy, blogger and good friend has done it again. Writing in the LA Times, in an "experimental" column called "OUTSIDE THE TENT" Cooper (use the link starting this paragraph for a link to the article, the LATimes is already charging for it's "archive") notes the title of his column "The Times' 'Blazing Straddle'" and takes on journalism that is overly balanced.

That's not to impugn what has been reported to date [Cooper is referring to the Times coverage of the Iraqi elections -ed]. But that reporting, like nearly all reporting in The Times, has been run through the usual sort of editorial food processor that guarantees the prevailing standard of "fair, balanced, objective stories." You know the routine: he said/she said; yes/but; the so-called blazing straddle of "objectivity."

And of course my friend is correct, and also (as usual) somewhat wrong. I see no problem when a reporter writes "the kind of stuff written by hard bitten reporters with the press cards stuck in the hatbands, chasing down leads they've stumbled across rather than interpretations of the daily press briefings" as one of Marc's commenters wrote. Were that all reporters, went after stories and hunted them down. All too often however, they also slant their reportage with a political bias. This is especially true if the issue at hand is political or sensational and this is not a rant against the "Leftist MSM" but is a condemnation of the right doing the same thing as well.

What we really need, are reporters who go after a story, do the deep background, follow it up and report it accurately. Then, in separate article, or by another reporter, see if you can't find evidence to the contrary.

That would make for some good reading methinks and no one ought to be able to complain about bias.

Posted by GM Roper at January 31, 2005 12:57 AM | TrackBack