Saturday, October 02, 2004
LAT's Michael Kinsley wanders by the Campaign Desk:
The conventions of objectivity make it very difficult to say that something is a lie. And they require balance, which is often just not justified by reality. [...] "Candidate X murdered three people at a rally yesterday, and candidate Y sneezed without using a Kleenex. This is why many people are saying this is the roughest campaign ever."
[...]
I think it's absolutely true that Bush and his administration are better than anyone ever has been in sticking to the party line. I would be quicker to criticize people for not adapting if I could think of a way to adapt. [...] So I think all you can do is point it out and let people draw their own conclusion.
[...]
I think that, possibly, if your editorial page is one way, the op-ed page should tilt slightly the other way. But I also think you want to have a general standard of fairness, but you don't want to start counting articles and having rigid quotas, because the most important thing is to find ideas that are interesting and important.
If anyone has the scoop on this Candidate Y incident, use our tips form, because that kind of thing is just nasty.
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