2 ms·
You got a bunch of replies already, but I think it's worth piling on. There aren't always two sides; if you always report there being two sides chances are you'
by glenstein 13y ago
You got a bunch of replies already, but I think it's worth piling on. There aren't always two sides; if you always report there being two sides chances are you're doing irresponsible journalism.
Whether or not there are multiple legitimate sides to a debate that are best left to the discretion of the reader is something that depends on the facts of each particular story and is not something that can be assumed as some sort of metaphysical principle of journalism.
- pyre 13y agoGolden Rule of the Internet: Someone will always be pedantic unless you write your post to be airtight and have copious amounts of text covering all edge-cases. People always have a compulsion to evaluate what you wrote while ignoring the current context. Did I say somewhere here that all articles on the Holocaust require an equal amount of time presenting the views of Holocaust-deniers? If not, then why assume that I'm making some sort of absolute statement?
- glenstein 13y agoThere's nothing "edge case" about this. Attempts to articulate the "other side" of the NSA scandal have been amongst the worst instances of reporting and the greatest sources of misunderstanding we've had to deal with, and they can be found right in the bullseye center of the NSA conversation. I'd say a better candidate for Golden Rule of the Internet is the tendency of people to collapse meaningful distinctions, and think that policing those distinctions is pedantry relating to far-off hypotheticals, but not to instances of their own behavior.