Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Let's step away from the "rights and wrongs" language for a bit (we can come back to it later if either of us stays interested long enough) because that makes it a little too easy to get sidetracked into moral issues, and from there into realms that are entirely appropriate to treat as opinion.

Let us instead focus on "correct and incorrect", "true and false", "verifiable and bullshit", and maybe even "credible and suspect".

Let me also rephrase my earlier question thus: Can the rest of us afford to grant reporters and editors the luxury of not caring enough to judge an issue, if we're expecting them to inform us?

"It's is our job to inform readers. They need to come away with more information, not be more confused."

If we're talking about whether aritifical Christmas trees demean established traditions, then by all means let both sides be represented; let reporters who have an opinion and wish to express it identify their allegiance, and let the others report it in a don't-care, "some say this and some say that" manner.

Similarly, if the debate is about whether the emphasis in our approach to criminal justice should be on punishment or rehabilitation, about what our goals will be as a society, there's room for opinion; when one side claims that a particular rehabilitation program does or does not produce intended results, and the results of the program are accurately documented, lies or errors about those results should not go uncontested and un-noted by reporters. As somebody famous said, "you're entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts".

When we're talking about cases where one party is lying, and that can be known, I don't think it's responsible journalism to repeat the lies on an equal footing with the truth. Similarly where one side is simply mistaken about a verifiable matter of fact -- report the claim, if you must, but indicate that it's erroneous and how you know that. For example, if the pig-bouncers assert that no pigs are ever harmed by ther sport, and a respectable journal of vetrinary medicine reports between 100 and 150 pigs per year requiring treatent for pig-bouncing related injuries, that needs to be noted next to the pig-bouncer's claim of harmlessness. Then the question of whether that's a large enough number to be concerned about compared to other causes of injuries to pigs or compared to the number of pigs involved in the sport, or whether we should even care about the welfare of non-human animals ... those can be debated as opinion and as morality, but call the bogon a bogon.

(Note that the court cases about ID have not decided the question of whether God exists; they have been about whether ID is science or not, whether it's religion or not, and whether ID proponents have been honest about it. A reporter can quite reasonably mention the disagreement between theists and atheists regarding His existence as a "some say and others disagree" affair -- even, perhaps, "controversy", if it rises to that level -- but when IDists claim they have no religious agenda and documentary evidence shows otherwise, or when IDists claim ID is science but can't show how it meets any level of scientific rigor or even asks the right kinds of questions to be science, reporting both sides as being equally credible just makes reporters accomplices in IDists' campaign to manufacture a controversy.)

When it comes to "generally accepted" versus "smells funny", where the correctness of each side cannot be known yet with certainty, one has to be more careful. But that still doesn't mean treating the two as equivalent.

As herveus said below, "When one 'side' is an intellectual scam, 'fair and balanced' reporting should not overlook the scam."

Let the editorial pages be hotbeds of debate (please! -- with well laid-out arguments as you suggest) but not the news-reporting sections. And let the debate be fairly contested, with differences of opinion about what we should do in response to facts, but no making up more convenient 'facts' to replace correct ones.