In Reply: Opinion Journalism is "real" journalism... in fact, it may be some of the best.

In reply to: The Plum Line - A little message to Jeffrey Goldberg's anonymous Post sources, and the idea that "opinion journalism" isn't "real" journalism:
---------

Opinion journalism is the best thing to happen to "the news" in a long time...

While I'm not as dismissive of the folks trying to play it straight as some of the other folks commenting -- as long as they don't fall into the "fair and balanced" trap that leads some to give us the equivalent of "Some say the Earth is round. Others disagree. Here to talk about it is a representative of each camp...", I'm ok with those who try to avoid slant and bias in their reporting.

But a more adversarial system, with reporters on "the left" explaining where reporters on "the right" are misstating facts, and libertarians showing up the faults of neocon opinioneers (and vice versa, of course... ...on those few occasions where that's actually possible) is doing more to get to the heart of "the truth" than so-called unbiased reporting ever did.

Anyone who claims not to've known where Weigel stood politically probably shouldn't be reading a paper, let alone writing for or producing one. But he and those like him have contributed much to the public's understanding of the stories they covered and most certainly are reporters. WaPo's loss will be some other media outlet's gain, and the public will continue being served by good solid reporting of both fact and opinion.
---

Posted June 28, 2010 12:44 PM