Soccer Dad: MSM balance

December 29, 2005

MSM balance

Back in November the Washington Post ran an article reporting that the military recruits disproportionately from the poor. At the time PostWatch questioned the non-partisan nature of the group whose information served as a basis for the story.

This past Sunday the Washington Post's new ombudsman, Deborah Howell, weighed in. If her work is a sign of things to come she represents a huge improvement over her predecessor Michael Getler.

Getler seemed to be the average newspaper ombudsman who felt that his job is explaining why journalism is never biased and how there are so many shades of truth and why the average reader can't possibly understand the many considerations that go into making a news decision. Howell though, this past Sunday, actually was concerned that "...respected military reporter..." had not covered all her bases in the initial report and described what the reporter, Ann Scott Tyson, had written as "...lackin[ing] context." She also identified the source for the story as "...a liberal-leaning think tank that questions the war in Iraq." Knowing that is important. While Howell didn't say it explicitily, when you understand who the source is you understand that the conclusion was likely predetermined.

PostWatch, naturally, is happy with Howell's work and notes with some irony:

Partisanship aside, you're simply much better informed about military recruiting in this 950-word column than in Tyson's 1,890-word story. It's disservice to the public that Howell's work, published on a Christmas Sunday, will reach fewer people than Tyson's front-page story that ran above the fold on a Friday and which still runs in the archives uncorrected.

This is in sharp contrast to the coverage the Post was giving last week to an allegation, mentioned by the President, that a lawmaker's revelation that the government was tracking Osama bin Laden's satellite calls, gave Osama a crucial "head's up" and he stopped using the phone. (i.e. the President claimed "loose lips sink ships. the Post's Glenn Kessler wrote "not in this case.")

PostWatch notes that the Post was scrupulous in finding ever single piece of information or opinion that questioned the President's claim. The truth is that if the Post made a questionable claim on an issue that it's editors agreed with, the paper usually would not be so careful in debunking the charge. That's why the ombudsman's take on the military recruiting story is so important.

In another surprising display of honesty, The Chicago Tribune actually reviewed the administration's case for war and concluded:

After reassessing the administration's nine arguments for war, we do not see the conspiracy to mislead that many critics allege. Example: The accusation that Bush lied about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs overlooks years of global intelligence warnings that, by February 2003, had convinced even French President Jacques Chirac of "the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq." We also know that, as early as 1997, U.S. intel agencies began repeatedly warning the Clinton White House that Iraq, with fissile material from a foreign source, could have a crude nuclear bomb within a year.

Of course there are those no doubt who will say that the tribune is covering itself:

Seventeen days before the war, this page reluctantly urged the president to launch it. We said that every earnest tool of diplomacy with Iraq had failed to improve the world's security, stop the butchery--or rationalize years of UN inaction. We contended that Saddam Hussein, not George W. Bush, had demanded this conflict.

Kudo's to Deborah Howell and the Chicago Tribune for bucking the system and showing that it is possible to be balanced.

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