It Shouldn't Be A Cat And Mouse Game

One of Hugh Hewitt's continuing interests is in getting MSM journalists to admit where they stand politically. An account of the latest attempt:

Here's the transcript and audio of the interview with the Washington Post's Joel Achenbach.

...

Nice fellow. Smart. Good writer. No doubt fun to have a beer with. Wants to discuss politics, but only on his own terms. Doesn't want you to know who he voted for. Wants to turn every question about Michael Moore into a question about Michael Moore and Ann Coulter.

A classic MSMer, in other words, and not very serious about the war though he does write about it on occasion. The war provides material. Everything is material. Got to be able to laugh, right, or at least smile?

I understand that humor and science writing is different from political commentary, but Joel really did not seem to understand my point that, upon leaving humor and science behind for politics and war, tone and approach ought to change.

And he definitely doesn't buy into my long standing belief that those whose bylines appear in big papers or who broadcast from big microphones owe their audience basic disclosures.

In no other field is secrecy as to personal belief and ideological investment so well regarded as journalism.

In the courts, jurors and witnesses must unburden themselves of their past relevant associations and positions before being allowed to participate.

In trading, insiders are under scrutiny, and the self-interested suspect.

In some areas of journalism, it is a sin to report on any entity with which the reporter has even a slight connection.

But political reporters and columnists recoil in horror at the prospect of a simple answer to the question: For whom did you vote.

Here's the reason: If you gathered up the ballots from the past four presidential elections from the 1,000 most influential MSMers in print and broadcast, I guess that more than 3,600 of the ballots would have Kerry, Gore or Clinton on them.

From such a pool an objective press cannot spring.

So upon being asked, they dissemble. But they also stumble.

HH: You've never voted for a Republican, have you?

JA: I'm sure I have.

And this:

HH: Okay, so what I'm getting at is why not tell people? Why not just honestly say here I am. I'm Joel Achenbach in the round. I'm not trying to fool anyone. I'm not trying to smuggle politics into my humor/science column. I'm just a guy who believes in this, this, and this, and correct for the lie of the green. Why not share that out?

JA: That's a good question. I don't know, I don't think that it necessarily helps if you know the political voting pattern of everyone who writes for the newspaper.

It doesn't help the credibility of the newspaper, for sure, if all of their writers are voting left decade in and decade out.

See the rest of the post for Achenbach's estimate of what proportion of generals serving in Iraq will consider the war to be an utter fiasco when they look back on it many years from now.