\r\n
- Why were journalists and commentators so blind? I suspect it had to do with their desire to seem neutral. In order to show how even-handed and open-minded they were, journalists felt that they had to find Republican fiscal heroes. Reporting that the whole deficit debate was a political ploy, lacking any substance, would have sounded shrill.
\r\n
- Molly Ivins on fair and balanced news
\r\n
\r\n
Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co./Truthout
\r\n
John A. Boehner, the Republican leader, presented the party's new agenda last year in Virginia. (Photo: Drew Angerer/New York Times)
\r\n
Who could have seen this coming?
\r\n
The Washington Post editorial board was shocked (shocked!) to discover in early January that incoming congressional Republicans aren’t serious about deficit reduction.
\r\n
“You could listen to their rhetoric — or you could read the rules they are poised to adopt at the start of the new Congress,” they wrote in a Jan. 2 editorial. “The former promises a new fiscal sobriety. The latter suggests that the new G.O.P. majority is determined to continue the spree of unaffordable tax-cutting.”
\r\n
More...
\r\n
Related:
\r\n
Molly Ivins on fair and balanced news, Entersection
\r\n
Balanced seesaw
Image credit: Pop + Politics
\r\n
The very notion that on any given story all you have to do is report what both sides say and you’ve done a fine job of objective journalism debilitates the press. There is no such thing as objectivity, and the truth, that slippery little bugger, has the oddest habit of being way to hell off on one side or the other: it seldom nestles neatly halfway between any two opposing points of view. The smug complacency of much of the press—I have heard many an editor say, “Well, we’re being attacked by both sides so we must be right”—stems from the curious notion that if you get a quote from someone on both sides, preferably in an official position, you’ve done the job. In the first place, most stories aren’t two-sided, they’re 17-sided at least. In the second place, it’s of no help to either the readers or the truth to quote one side saying, “Cat,” and the other side saying “Dog,” while the truth is there’s an elephant crashing around out there in the bushes. Getting up off your duff and going to find out for yourself is still the most useful thing a reporter can do.
Actually, Julian Assange didn't leak anything--he can't, because he didn't have access to classified documents. Someone (or someones) who did have such access leaked those documents to Assange's WikiLeaks, which, as a journalistic organization, made them available to the world, both directly and through other media partners.
Two sons of former President Ronald Reagan have been engaged in a public disagreement over whether their father exhibited early signs of Alzheimer's disease while still in the White House.
iStockphoto/Salon
On Tuesday (Jan 18), the Federal Communications Commission blessed the merger of Comcast, the nation's largest cable and residential Internet provider, with NBC-Universal. The Justice Department immediately followed suit, removing the last obstacle to the unprecedented consolidation of media and Internet power in the hands of one company. 
