Highly recommended

by

The Columbia Journalism Review’s Campaign Desk is excellent, so far. (Moe, can you put them on my blog roll?)

I hope they can keep it up in the general election, where it’s harder to steer between the two pitfalls of:
1) favoring the party you want to win
2) criticizing Democrats and Republicans (or in this case, press accounts that favor/attack Democrats and Republicans) equally, regardless of the merits.

I’ve never seen a self appointed fact checker or media watchdog that didn’t fall into one trap or the other, but there’s a first time for everything.

4 thoughts on “Highly recommended”

  1. I’m biased myself, and no doubt I’ll get called out for this, but I think Spinsanity (http://www.spinsanity.org) has fallen too far into trap #2 to be very useful.
    For example–they always call out politicians for attacking each other’s patriotism, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans. And rightly so. But this:

    Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), head of the National Republican Campaign Committee, did, that Daschle’s “divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies”.

    and this (from good old Rush):

    “Way to demoralize the troops, Senator! What more do you want to do to destroy this country than what you’ve already tried? [pounding table] It is unconscionable what this man has done! This stuff gets broadcast around the world, Senator. What do you want your nickname to be? Hanoi Tom? Tokyo Tom? You name it, you can have it apparently. You sit there and pontificate on the fact that we’re not winning the war on terrorism when you and your party have done nothing but try to sabotage it, which you are continuing to do.”

    are fundamentally different from this, from Wesley Clark:

    “I don’t think it’s patriotic to put on a flight suit and prance around on the deck of an aircraft carrier looking for a photo op.”

    Now, those are from different posts, and Limbaugh’s and Davis’ attacks get somewhat stronger criticism than Clark’s. But only somewhat. And to me they are worlds apart; so far apart that to give them comparable attention is just non-sensicial.
    Or take this:

    ‘Clark’s statement is similar to an accusation made by fellow Democratic presidential contender Senator John Kerry, D-MA, who last year called for “regime change” in the United States (the US policy toward Iraq had previously been called “regime change,” indicating a desire to remove the dictator Saddam Hussein from power).
    Intense, passionate disagreements are to be expected in the midst of a competitive election for the nation’s highest office. But all of the Democratic nominees need to avoid these unfounded speculations and emotional associations.
    Unfortunately, there are already signs that conservatives are resorting to similar tactics as election season begins. In his Best of the Web Today column on the Wall Street Journal’s OpinionJournal.com website yesterday, James Taranto referred to Democrats who cheered during the State of the Union address when the President said that “key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year” as “the al Qaeda cheering section.” Taranto added, “If Osama bin Laden watched the speech, one imagines him applauding too.”

    Kerry’s “regime change” crack is a “similar tactic” to calling Democrats “the Al Qaeda cheering section”? I don’t think so, and I don’t think the authors of Spinsanity really think so either.

  4. Katherine,
    I used to read Spinsanity on a regular basis, but stopped doing so several months ago for exactly that reason; “balance” without regard to “bias”, if you will.
    The incomparable Bob Somerby continues to be, well, incomparable, but he only analyzes the media; let’s hope the CJR fills Spinsanity’s former spot.

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