The Bias of Veteran Journalists
Apr 5 2010, 8:30 AM ET
Lane Wallace
Many times, at parties and in other conversations over the years, I have vociferously defended fellow journalists against charges of bias in their work. Particularly journalists working in the lowly field of print journalism, as opposed to TV.
Not that everyone in the field is perfect, unbiased, or even a good reporter. And not that I haven't ever encountered an editor who really, really wanted a story to say "X" as opposed to "Y." I remember one editor who complained that a story I'd done about NASA test pilots didn't make them sound like the wild cowboys he imagined they were. (Unfortunately--or fortunately--the truth about test pilots is, they're not cowboys. They're precision engineers and very calculated risk-mitigators, hitting test cards with calm, methodical accuracy. The risk isn't in their attitude. It's in the inherent hazards of testing new technology under real conditions for the first time.)
But within those caveats, I've always maintained that the majority of professional print journalists, anyway, try very, very hard to get the story right. But recently, I had an experience that gave me a new perspective on the issue.
A few weeks ago...
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