I’ve often criticized Slate‘s Bushisms and Kerryisms; and, as I suggest in the post below, Slate‘s Whopper of the Week column also deserves criticism, at least this week.
Part of the problem, I think, is precisely that these are regular columns, with constant plots — not just constant subject matters (the war, the economy, or whatever else), but constant points (Bush misspoke, Kerry spoke in too complex a way, someone lied). This means that their authors are constantly looking for something that fits the plot.
That’s not a good recipe for sound, thoughtful journalism. First, it means you’re approaching events with a prejudice — “here’s my stock plot, and I expect facts to fit it.” Now all of us have some such prejudices, simply from our experience. But good journalists tend to fight against their prejudices, both to avoid cliche and to avoid letting their prejudices blind them to reality (such as the possibility that when Bush says he’s honored to shake the hands) of people whose hands had been cut off, he means exactly what he’s saying, and it makes perfect logical, moral, and political sense). The Slate columns embrace the prejudices — and, unsurprisingly, do get blinded by them.
Second, these stock plots tend to lead writers to include things that seem almost fitting, though not quite. If someone said something that seems to diverge from his earlier statements, a journalist without a stock plot can write a good piece about the subject. But if the journalist is looking for a Whopper of the Week, it’s tempting to fit the new story within the Whopper format — even though it doesn’t literally fit the category’s ostensible boundaries (unambiguous misstatements). And once one does that, one isn’t likely to explain how this incident actually diverges from the stock plot (since that would be an admission that it really isn’t a Whopper of the Week, a Kerryism, or whatever else) — and the result is inaccuracy, and inaccuracy that may well mislead readers.
The best journalism, I think, comes when journalists look at the facts and then come up with their evaluation. The Slate columns are evaluations in search of suitable facts. It’s not surprising that this often leads to the columns being incorrect evaluations.
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