Denial & panic
On Sundays I try to be free of the positions I take in the newspaper on weekdays, and vice versa for that matter. Believe it or not, and I know some readers may have trouble with this, on weekdays I am more reporting than commenting, more explaining than preaching.
The two activities -- reporting and commenting -- are so mutually interdependent that it would be dishonest not always to be doing a bit of both. But still, one dancer or the other must lead. On weekdays, in this job as in life, I am not really telling people what should happen, but rather, what I think is happening. This naturally involves nice questions of judgement, that reveal a writer clearly enough, whether or not they also reveal the true course of events. But let me say, and not really for the first time, that the thing that most nauseates me in journalism is the writer with very strong opinions, who masquerades behind the language of "objectivity". (For example, I cannot tell you how much I despise much of the New York Times.)
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