This reporter got a quick reminder about bias while writing one of his first stories for The Washington Times.
The subject matter escapes my memory – it wasn’t a political story at all, that much I recall. But I included a slight dig at Hillary Clinton in the piece I filed. The sentence in question wasn’t harsh or demeaning. Frankly, I was trying to be cute.
My editor quickly nixed the line, and I learned a lesson about shoe-horning political comments into apolitical stories.
The folks at The Onion could use a lesson in this area.
Check out this portion of a film review of “Outrage” by Nathan Rabin regarding Gov. Sarah Palin:
“John McCain chose a woman whose sexuality has never been in question, just her experience, competence and intelligence.”
The Onion isn’t The New York Times, but comments like that seem inappropriate in a film review aimed at a mass audience expecting straightforward reportage.
Movie bloggers work in a different realm, a place where opinion and hard facts collide.
The Onion isn’t a blog, and some of its entertainment reporting is first rate. Just wish a wizenened editor would have clipped out that comment.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Right on. The ought to save that crap for the front page, where people know they’re not being deadly serious.
Your sarcasm jumped off my computer monitor like a 3-D movie, Jake!
experience … Lets see, two more years in an executive branch than Barack Obama or Joe Biden. Unless Blago was letting Obama run the state from the senate. Was also a Mayor, and did something on one in Obama’s cabinet has done, ran a business. Yeah, complete moron compared to the Ivy League douche who can’t change his oil but is expected to fix all the auto companies.
competence … Alaska is doing quite well fiscally compared to other states, she has a good approval rating despite near constant attacks, is making headway on energy policy and hasn’t taken over companies in her state like a drunk Monopoly player.
intelligence … Again, compared with the guy who showed no legal wherewithal during debates, tried to get a paralyzed man to stand up out of his wheelchair, and that guy’s boss, who thinks there are 57 states. She of that awful middle class inbreeding, unlike the folks at The Onion, who write ‘humor’ while dying someone takes them seriously. Kind of like the Huffington Post.