Daily Dolts
The Sun Times editors who allowed Mark Steyn’s column past the fact checking process. Steyn’s a moron and so I’m not really too worried about him being a dolt, he’s established himself as that brand. However, the Sun-Times should know better than to allow supposed ‘facts’ into a column they are publishing when the facts are incorrect.
January 22nd, 2007 at
You raise an important point but you are pounding against a brick wall. I have often complained to Editors about false statements in “opinion” columns. The response is always the same. These are opinions. My counter is to ask how many times you let people write demonstrably false facts in columns before you stop letting them publish.
When a newspaper prints a column it is an implied statement that they vouch for the information. If they were held to that standard they might exercise some professional supervision.
January 22nd, 2007 at
Oh, my forhead is sore. It’s a huge problem and when I’m teaching its something I have to point out about opinions. Some are better than others and inevitably those opinions supported by facts and sound reasoning are better than those without. Even thus constrained, there’s plenty of debate to be had.
January 22nd, 2007 at
I sent this e-mail message to the opinion editor…
To The Opinion Editor,
In the Sunday January 21, 2007 column titled “Media are gonna Barack around the clock” written by Mark Steyn, Mr. Steyn states that Senator Barack Obama “…was raised in an Indonesian madrassah by radical imams…”.
This statement is false.
If the opinion editor doubts this point of fact regarding Senator Obama’s primary education, I would suggest that the opinion editor take a break from fact checking Sun-Times opinion articles and carefully read the following news report from the Cable News Network.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/22/obama.madrassa/
Mr. Steyn also stated in his Sunday column that “The madrassah stuff was supposedly leaked to Insight Magazine by some oppo-research heavies on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s team.”
This statement is not false or true. It is based on a rumor.
Could the opinion editor please explain to me by what ethical standard in journalism would allow Mr. Steyn to print a blatant falsehood based on a rumor regarding Senator Obama’s primary school education?
As we move forward into the campaign season, I think the editors of this newspaper would be well advised to stick to printing facts concerning the candidates that are derived by fundamental journalistic principles grounded on the truth, not rumors.
Sincerely,
J.S.