NPR's Andrea Seabrook fed up with all the lies quits

[Bernardo de La Paz]

30. You equate talking points = truth. That's bogus. You are shooting the wrong messenger.

You seem to think that there is always one truth and that one side or the other always states it; presumably you think the blue team is always a truth-teller.

It is a fallacy to see things in black & white, as being purely true or simple or that simple lines can be drawn. There are many truths on any issue, many facts, and many valid points. There are shades of gray and usually no simple line can be drawn. It is bogus to say one "side is simply 'the truth'".

Often both sides will make valid points, and even more often one side will have more valid points than the other. They are all talking points, valid or invalid. You can try to redefine the meaning of the phrase "talking point" to your own private language, but that doesn't work so well.

What Seaborn is advocating is for media in general and reporters in particular to stop only repeating talking points without asking hard questions that might get them denied access. When politicians become evasive and answer a touchy question with a talking point -- say answering an abortion question with a jobs point as Akin does -- then the questions can become harder and blunter.

If you don't want hard questions asked, if you want reporters to report talking points, if you want them to simply be a conveyor belt for spin from both sides, ... then you can get it by knocking down people like Seaborn who rebel against it.