Washington Post: Fair and Balanced, If They Say So Themselves

I wrote an email to Washington Post reporter Sara Goo about her front-pager about the Transportation Security Administration's new VIPER plan to put roving security teams onto trains and buses and other mass transit. (The plan has already been rolled back.)

My complaint was a general one: we claim a distinction between news and opinion, but all news articles these days about the Federal government are really point/counterpoint opinion pieces masquerading as news. "We think this is a very good approach" says a TSA spokesman; "This is absurd" says a guy who used to work for Northwest.

My complaint is the stenography over journalism one. My complaint is that she was emphasizing opinion about the policy, whether it's good or bad, over the facts of what the policy is.

She was confused by my comments. I think she took me for a freeper.

Garrett,

Thanks for your email. My job as a reporter is to write a fair and balanced story that offers as many points of view as possible on an issue that is the subject of news. I am not offering my own opinion nor making a judgment in the story about whose point of view is superior. To only present one side of the story---such as the official government side of the story as you seem to suggest--would not be fair nor balanced.

I am confused by your comments. You seem to be suggesting that if TSA has a policy change to announce, they should do so in the op-ed section? I completely disagree. This is news. It's not opinion.

Sara

She's confused, I'm confused. I thought fair and balanced was Fox.

Fox News has used the mark "Fair & Balanced", sometimes depicted as "Fair and Balanced" (the "Trademark") to distinguish and brand FNC's distinctive method of newsgathering and reporting.
Fox vs. Penguin, complaint.

If Fox News and the Washington Post share this distinctive method of reporting; if Fox News and the Washington Post share this registered mark to identify and describe themselves, are Fox News and the Washington Post the same thing?

•  To be fair

  Fox using Fair and Balanced was done on purpose to piss off liberals who know it is neither fair nor balanced. Actual balance is not necessarily a poor thing.

  by VirginiaBelle on Thu Dec 15, 2005 at 11:29:40 AM PDT

•  If your email resembled

  the first three paragraphs of your diary, then what the heck was she confused about?  I thought your point was pretty clear.

  I'm guessing that the bulk of the feedback she gets consists of complaints about liberal/conservative bias, and she assumed that your's was just another one.

  Given the article she wrote, the irony of her response ("This is news. It's not opinion.") went right over her head.

  Scrutiny is dead; the press just wants to mc a war of words.

  by Siminon on Thu Dec 15, 2005 at 11:49:30 AM PDT

  •  Two styles of doing the news

    1) The Transportation Security Administration is testing a new policy. The new policy will do X, Y, and Z.

    2) The Transportation Security Administration is testing a new policy. The new policy will do X, Y, and Z. "The sky will be bluer, the sun yellower, clouds whiter and fluffier, after implementation of this policy" said goverment officials about the plan. "Actually, the sky will be no more blue than before," said some random guy dug up from this reporter's rolodex.

    Put the bluer yellower fluffier debate on the opinion page, is all I'm saying. And the point did go entirely over the reporters head.

    by Garrett on Thu Dec 15, 2005 at 01:17:40 PM PDT