News-Record.com

OK, maybe not to the death. And, well, maybe not a cage match, seeing as they don't make cages for abstract concepts.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Which is funny because, where blogging is concerned, I'm running behind.

The so-four-days-ago big news in the political blogosphere is the so-called "Halperin memo," written by ABC News Political Director Mark Halperin on Friday to his staff and later obtained by Drudge. Since I couldn't read the memo in the *.jpeg file that Drudge posted, I'm relying on Drudge himself to have transcribed it accurately -- dangerous, I know. But if he's correct, the memo, complete with typos, said:

It goes without saying that the stakes are getting very high for the country and the campaigns - and our responsibilities become quite grave

I do not want to set off (sp?) and endless colloquy that none of us have time for today - nor do I want to stifle one. Please respond if you feel you can advance the discussion.

The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.

Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.

We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.

I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.

It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.

This memo was seized upon by Drudge and other conservatives as "proof" of liberal bias at ABC. Whether you agree with that assessment likely depends upon whether you agree with Halperin's assertion that "the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done." But that's not the issue I'm highlighting here.

Halperin goes on to say: "We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable when the facts don't warrant that. ... It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right."

Sentence fragments and all, Halperin has hit on a crucial principle here: News organizations have a duty to provide a free people with the information they need to govern themselves. That goes beyond reporting what each candidate says to attempt to determine which of them is speaking the truth, or is closer to it.

Here's where journalism and postmodernism collide -- and where, in my personal and humble opinion, the national news media largely have failed the American people in recent political campaigns. You would think that journalism would be more attracted to objective, verifiable facts, but the national media in recent campaigns have taken an almost insanely postmodern approach to political claims. (Now, I might have gone to a nice liberal-arts college and majored in English, but I do not care for postmodernism -- not in life and certainly not in journalism -- and have said so on several occasions.) And as a result, a free nation is being denied critical information it needs to govern itself.

Because, postmodernism to the contrary, everything doesn't necessarily depend upon your point of view. Some candidates' factual claims are measurably, objectively true or false. And a news media worth a damn will assess those claims as carefully and thoroughly as possible and report which claims are accurate and which are not. Even if it takes people. Even if it takes time. Even if it takes money.

Moreover, it will not, out of some misguided sense of "fairness" or "balance," treat factually unequal claims equally, nor will it treat all candidates' offenses as equally bad when, in fact, some are much more serious and much more indicative of a candidate's suitability for office than others. That's the journalistic equivalent of claiming that 2+2=5. (That's also the significance of the bolded passage above, which I bolded because when Drudge posted his announcement about the memo, this is the part he did not include. Anyone just reading Drudge's page who had not waded through the *.jpeg or read Drudge's transcription would have missed an important qualifying phrase.)

Halperin's memo obviously was written in haste, but that is the larger point he is making, and he's absolutely, positively right.

As for his claim that "the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done," that's an objectively verifiable or disprovable statement. If that's what he thinks, and if that thinking is guiding ABC News' coverage of the presidential race, then ABC News needs to marshall its evidence and lay it out before the electorate. And anyone who disagrees, in the national media or in Blogworld, ought to do the same.