Balanced Reporting

Balanced reporting these days requires that both sides of any story be given, regardless of how cockamamie one side might be. A story has to include the “he said, she said” business even if “he” is a complete moron and is babbling nonsense.

Consider this excerpt from a piece in Harpers Magazine about Glenn Beck,

In the Von Drehle universe, helium might have two electrons, but then again, consulting the university of what’s it’s name, it might have 14. A more reliable answer probably lies somewhere in between.

No the “reliable answer does not lie somewhere in between,” helium actually does have two electrons. When “he said” disagrees with “she said,” it is by no means inevitable that the truth lies in between them; one of them may simply be an idiot or a liar, and wrong.

When one person says the Earth is round and another that it is flat, the truth does not lie in the Earth being some sort of oval. That the Earth is round, as near as makes no difference, is a thoroughly proven fact. The people who claim flatness for the earth are idiots, their numbers are so small as to be meaningless, and their side of the story does not really need to be presented in a news story about global warming.