'Partisan journalism'

In remarking on John Avlon's assessment of the rising state of shameless hackery in American journalism, David Frum notes, "For what it's worth, I consider myself a partisan journalist and think the idea of journalistic objectivity is silly. But facts matter, and there's a major distinction between partisanship and hackery."

Agreed, yet I'd still maintain that journalistic objectivity is at least theoretically possible, though journalistic stenography is far more probable. The difference lies in the knowledge possessed and the effort applied by the reporter. It's far easier to simply repeat whatever one opposing side says--e.g., lower marginal tax rates on the wealthy create jobs--than to do painstaking, time-consuming, validating research, or, as the case may be, refuting research, and apply it to the story's content.

The more interesting question, though, is that of hackery versus what Frum calls "partisan journalism." He's correct in his fundamental distinction: hacks tend to simply dismiss unfavorable facts, a la Dick Morris. But is spinning facts--accentuating favorable ones and de-emphasizing the unfavorable--and calling it an act of partisan journalism valid?

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but to me the term "journalism"--and all the writing thereunder--implies a sacred duty to consciously spin nothing, whereas "commentary," duly labeled, is ethically free to spin away. Newspaper columns and blogs are merely an immense buffet of prejudiced commentary of one sort or another; a place where Krugman spins with the same intensity as Frum, and where Dionne is as emphatic in his selected facts as Sullivan.

Or, perhaps I'm making something out of nothing. Frum calls one rather extreme side of this opinionated mess the "conservative entertainment complex," while I see an equally revolting progressive entertainment complex as well. Maybe whatever's in the middle is, as he says, "partisan journalism"? I'm just not sure. I'm kinda in the middle on this.

Comments

[japa21]

I do think total objectivity is impossible. The world is not black and white and attempting to both identify and include in reporting every nuance is next to impossible. At some point a journalist has to make decisions on what to and not to include in their reporting. His/her bias is bound to be reflected in that.

How would you describe something like this:
"Sen. X repeated his claim that cutting taxes helps job growth. However he did not provide any evidence to support that claim. Meanwhile, the CBO recently released a report indicating there is no evidence to support the Senator's claim."

[Turgidson]

I agree there is a progressive entertainment complex. Ed Schultz, bless his well-meaning but bumbling heart, is the caricature face of it.

I don't believe, however, that it holds even 1/100th the influence over its titular political party that the right-wing version does over the GOP. Maybe if it grows larger and more raucous over the next couple decades as the conservative propaganda apparatus has, that will change.

Also, it's hard to properly categorize Krugman. He's not a partisan exactly, nor a typical pundit. He sometimes seems even more upset with Democrats than Republicans, because he expects sanity from the D's but has no such illusions he'll get it from R's.

But ultimately he's a partisan for Keynesian economics if anything, and tends to have the facts on his side more often than not. He does have a healthy ego, though, and I think he'd have as much trouble admitting error as his adversaries do, should he really get something big hilariously wrong.

He'd quickly ditch his clear yet very unenthusiastic preference for the Democrats if they became drunk on the supply-side Kool-Aid he so despises, however. Frum, even now, after all the GOP insanity, founed an utterly tortured rationalization for voting for a complete fraud like Mitt Romney. I give Krugman more credit than that.

[Peter G]

Join the club. I very much doubt that truly objective journalism is possible. But it should always be the objective. A good rule of thumb is that the more objective a journalist claims to be the less likely they are to actually attempt to be objective.