{"id":689,"date":"2012-03-12T18:25:34","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T23:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/?p=689"},"modified":"2012-03-12T18:34:05","modified_gmt":"2012-03-12T23:34:05","slug":"fair-and-balanced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/fair-and-balanced\/","title":{"rendered":"Fair and Balanced"},"content":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s wrong with journalism today? Look no further than this article<\/a> in today\u2019s New York Times about voter ID laws. Specifically, this paragraph:<\/p>\n

Supporters argue that the restrictions are necessary to prevent fraud. Critics say there is no evidence of significant amounts of in-person voter impersonation fraud \u2014 the kind addressed by photo identification requirements \u2014 and contend the restrictions are a veiled effort to suppress turnout by legitimate voters who tend to vote disproportionally for Democrats.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Notice what is missing there, and in the rest of the article? Any context for that \u201che said, she said\u201d blurb. Nothing about which side has more facts on their side. It is, once again, a classic example of what the Times\u2019 own Paul Krugman called out<\/a> more than 10 years ago: \u201cShape of the Planet: Both Sides Have a Point.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Supporters argue that the restrictions are necessary to prevent fraud”: What kind of fraud? How often does it occur? How many prosecutions have there been? “Critics say there is no evidence of significant amounts of in-person voter impersonation fraud”: So what are the numbers? By golly, that’s testable! You could look that up. A million cases of voter impersonation fraud in the country would be evidence that there is a pandemic of fraud. A few cases a year would be evidence that it’s not a real issue. So easy to give context!<\/p>\n

But no. Journalism these days is not concerned with calling facts out, and this is certainly taken advantage of in public debate. And very unfortunately, this has a detrimental effect to our democracy. It’s the role of journalism to present the public with a common set of facts from which debate can go forward. They are failing miserably.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s wrong with journalism today? Look no further than this article in today\u2019s New York Times about voter ID laws. Specifically, this paragraph: Supporters argue that the restrictions are necessary to prevent fraud. Critics say there is no evidence of significant amounts of in-person voter impersonation fraud \u2014 the kind addressed by photo identification requirements… Continue reading Fair and Balanced<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[213],"class_list":["post-689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-media","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t