I saw John Stewart on Nightline complaining about how the press is giving equal gravity to both John Kerry's supporters and the Lying Swift Boat Vets, apparently out of objectivity. Bob Nightline made an analogy that, if George W. Bush accused Bob Nightline of being a pedophile, even though it isn't true it would be newsworthy (which surely begs the question, "But wouldn't it also be newsworthy that Bush was making those accusations without any evidence, and that Bob Nightline is surely not a pedophile?).
In any case, there's a link-heavy segment at the end of Slate's Today's Papers that I think more people should see, so I'm reproducing it here.
The papers' stories on Kerry's charges of distortions seem to be missing one thing: the truth. There are plenty of examples this morning. Take the effort by the Post's Lois Romano and Howard Kurtz. The story begins, "John F. Kerry came out swinging Thursday night, denouncing the Republican convention for its 'anger and distortion' ...." The article goes on to quote Kerry, the Bush team, and then ponders the meaning of it all ... and somehow skips any facts to help readers evaluate if the "distortion" charge is accurate. (It is.)Reporters often assess the veracity of leaders' statements ... when it's the leaders of foreign countries. Is there some mutated notion of objectivity stopping them from doing the same here? Or as one media reporter put it yesterday, "Isn't it part of the journalistic mission to provide a reality check?"