Just had to point out this sneering quote that Michelle Malkin found, buried in a WaPo article about bloggers being allowed in the Republican and Democratic National Conventions this year:
...neither party has ever allowed bloggers to cover one of its presidential conventions firsthand -- and the decision seems to promise a clash of two very different cultures. The conventions have become carefully staged productions intended, primarily, to reintroduce the parties' nominees to the general public. Independent blogs -- especially those focusing on politics -- are far more freewheeling, their authors mixing fact with opinion and under no obligation to be either fair or accurate.
Pardon me while I gag. No, political bloggers - who almost always link to source articles so that readers can check the material for themselves - are not obligated to be accurate. No, political bloggers - who almost always identify their leanings very clearly on the very front page, if not in the actual titles of their blogs - are not obligated to be fair. I think what galls this reporter is that such bloggers often are accurate, and if not, publicly fact-checked. What's more, "fairness" isn't an issue because such bloggers rarely claim, as many newspaper falsely do, to be "unbiased" and "balanced" about issues. The suggestion that journalists who cover the conventions would have no biases is absurd, but unlike bloggers, they're unlikely to be honest about it.
I just had to comment on this, if for no reason other than a former friend of mine was appalled to find out that I was blogging my opinions about psychometrics. He was furious that I wasn't providing balance on my blog; I wasn't allowing people who disagreed with me equal time on a blog that I alone fund and slave over. How dare I not allow these people their "free speech."
I couldn't figure out what his deal was, until I realized that he had been so brainwashed into believing that the only acceptable method was of reporting anything is in an "unbiased" fashion that he can't deal with honestly-opinionated reporting. I think he truly believes, as does this WaPo reporter, that it is wrong for someone who is informed about a topic to take a stance, and quote material (research, data, events) in an effort to convince readers to support that particular mindset - to mix fact with opinion, as the horrified reporter said.
In the mind of this former friend, my blog should never present anything except a "balanced" view on testing, and the idea that I support tests, and testing, and will roundly criticize anyone who bashes tests in a clueless fashion, is, to him, "biased" rather than, well, having an informed opinion and allowing other people to know that.
As I said, a former friend.
Posted by kswygert at July 7, 2004 06:09 PM