Maybe Ms. Huffington is on to something after all. When they give equal weight to opinions spouted on the left and the right, the media give opinions the appearance of facts and thus allow for the kind of wholesale mendacity that’s characterized the Bush years. I tend to think this is not a political calculation, but a practical one: The media is so paralyzed with fear of “bias” that they refuse to make a distinction between fact and opinion. That would, after all, require reporting, which is expensive—and, I might add, hard. And to weigh the benefits and costs of a conservative policy versus a liberal policy? That is expensive, difficult and, worst of all, boring.
It’s easier for a reporter to dial an expert, insert line A into stance R (or D), and leave it at that. Again, this is less about ignoring or downplaying the superiority of liberal policies than it is about ignoring or downplaying policies, period.
Ms. Huffington neatly illustrates the dangers of this cheap and easy opinion-versus-opinion schema by replaying a CNN segment in which Michael Ware faced off with retired Gen. David Grange about a National Intelligence Estimate on the threat of terrorist violence. Mr. Ware and terrorism analyst Peter Bergen base their analysis on something resembling a fact: Al Qaeda does not have a terribly large presence in Iraq, they both say, and the American government is misleading when they say that the war in Iraq is against Al Qaeda. Mr. Grange, on the other hand, sounds more like a movie producer discussing the plot of an action thriller than a military expert discussing policy: “I like the idea of [terrorists] assembl[ing] in Iraq, because there’s more of them there to take down, instead of hunting them around the world of global operations.” That way we can film the whole thing in Vancouver; what do you say to Costner for Petraeus?
Ms. Huffington was probably being snarky when she described Mr. Grange’s appearance as “reporting for duty as administration apologist.” But it’s funny—or, really, not funny—because, as The New York Times recently revealed, it’s true.
Ana Marie Cox blogs at time.com/swampland. She can be reached at books@observer.com.
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