Journalism And Objectivity — What’s Right And Wrong About It

People who fret about objectivity in journalism, or the lack of it, are worrying about the wrong thing. They should be concerned about the journalism part of the equation. So argues press critic Jay Rosen, in a post at his PressThink blog I highly recommend

Objectivity, or the “view from nowhere,” is an attempt to persuade, Rosen says. And there are other ways to persuade, he says, including openly opinionated journalism. But the sine qua non is the reporting. Reporters must show they have done their homework. Don’t fret when reporters express opinions.

Rosen offers this openly as advice to Washington Post editor Marchus Brauchli, who along with other ontologically befuddled top Posties made confused and contradictory statements about WaPo’s journalism standards in the wake of firing crypto-lefty, faux-libertarian David Weigel.

I mostly agree with what Rosen, who leans left, says. But Rosen doesn’t address Weigel’s dishonesty in misrepresenting his political views, aided and abetted by his media pals.

David Carr, of the New York Times calls Weigel a libertarian. What Carr doesn’t say is that ‘libertarian” Weigel voted in the last three general elections for Al Gore, John Kerry and Obama.

In a a chat at the Poynter Institute’s Web site, Weigel made this eyebrow-raising statement: “Economics is not my expertise — I have always been closer to libertarianism on privatization, unions, and social issues than on economics.”

Weigel is admitting that he leans left on economic issues (which for some strange reason he thinks doesn’t include privatization and unions) and leans left on social issues. And he doesn’t know much about economics, but that won’t stop him from having an opinion. This is the intellectual giant WaPo thought would provide sophisticated coverage inside the conservative movement.

Tibor Machan, he ain’t.

Libertarian, my @$$!