NYT/Krugman: A false Balance (Abramoff scandal)

[BlueEyedSon]

"How does one report the facts," asked Rob Corddry on "The Daily Show," "when the facts themselves are biased?" He explained to Jon Stewart, who played straight man, that "facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda," and therefore can't be reported.

Mr. Corddry's parody of journalists who believe they must be "balanced" even when the truth isn't balanced continues, alas, to ring true. The most recent example is the peculiar determination of some news organizations to cast the scandal surrounding Jack Abramoff as "bipartisan."

<snip>

Why does the insistence of some journalists on calling this one-party scandal bipartisan matter? For one thing, the public is led to believe that the Abramoff affair is just Washington business as usual, which it isn't. The scale of the scandals now coming to light, of which the Abramoff affair is just a part, dwarfs anything in living memory.

More important, this kind of misreporting makes the public feel helpless. Voters who are told, falsely, that both parties were drawn into Mr. Abramoff's web are likely to become passive and shrug their shoulders instead of demanding reform.
So the reluctance of some journalists to report facts that, in this case, happen to have an anti-Republican agenda is a serious matter. It's not a stretch to say that these journalists are acting as enablers for the rampant corruption that has emerged in Washington over the last decade.

Available on NYT's pay site or on the newsgroups:
http://groups.google.com/group/OpenDebateForum/browse_thread/thread/f52a313dfb84489e/86943ac675b46c13?lnk=st&q=%22a+false+balance%22+krugman&rnum=1&hl=en#86943ac675b46c13

[freesqueeze]

1. Way to go, Krugman!

The GOP Bag Man is just that.

THE G-O-P BAG MAN!

[Martin Eden]

2. Thanks for posting this.

Krugman exposes the bias of media "balance."

There's nothing balanced about perpetrating misinformation -- not when you thonk of balance in terms of the scales of justice and truth.