Telling both sides of the (misguided, patronizing) story

As I've said before, the objectivity-fetishizing conventions of straight news reporting make me crazy. It's not just the odd philosophical throwback of implying that reporters can somehow avoid writing as particular people situated in particular contexts. It's also the convoluted copy, in which even plain facts can't be stated plainly if they happen to be unpopular.

So I was glad when NPR released its new ethics handbook, in which among other things the network states that it favors "truth" over "the appearance of balance" and adds that "if the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side, we acknowledge it in our reports."

Jay Rosen rightly characterizes this as NPR "commiting itself to avoiding the worst excesses of 'he said, she said' journalism." I thought of this the other day when I heard a Morning Edition piece in which, after playing tape of a voter talking about President Obama and referring to him as a Muslim, the reporter told listeners simply: "Obama is not a Muslim; he's a Christian." He handled a claim about the president's citizenship the same way. Score two for facts, zero for "he said, she said" obfuscation-in-the-name-of-fairness. (And yes, I hope and expect to hear NPR handle 9/11 truthers and other corners of the evidence-free left in similar fashion.)