L’Affaire Weigel, which I followed only lightly since I was away when it unfolded, has apparently now morphed into a question of whether partisan bloggers are “real” reporters or, as several anonymous Washington Post workers put it, just embarrassments waiting to happen. Greg Sargent weighs in:
The cowardly hiding behind anonymonity is pathetic enough. But let’s take on the substance of this. I submit that someone can be a “real” reporter if he or she is accurate on the facts and fairly represents the positions of subjects; if he or she has a decent sense of what’s newsworthy and important to readers; and if readers come away from his or her stuff feeling more informed than they were before.
There’s simply no reason why caring what happens in politics — prefering one outcome to another — should inherently interfere with this mission. By publicly advertising a point of view, bloggers are simply being forthcoming about their filter: They are letting readers in on what guides their editorial choices. This allows readers to pick and choose communities where they can expect discussions about topics that interest them with other, generally like-minded readers.
[Etc. etc.]
Look: this is ridiculous. There’s just nothing new here. The Post, along with other newspapers, has long had opinionated reporters. They were and are called “columnists.” Robert Novak was a columnist with a conservative inclination. David Broder is a columnist with a centrist inclination. E.J. Dionne is a columnist with a liberal inclination. All three are also good reporters, and no one at the Post has ever suggested they’re a disgrace to the good name of journalism.
Whether Weigel was wise to make the comments he did about the people he covers is one thing — though I’ll bet there are few reporters alive who haven’t done the same. They just haven’t been outed by someone with an axe to grind. But broadly speaking, being a blogger is the same thing as being a columnist except in pixels instead of ink. It’s a long and well-accepted position. Why the hell do so many mainstream reporters still have a problem with this?
