Guess The Party!

The main story is typical. It's the update that makes this truly special.

I'll say it one more time: It is absurdly easy to stop this practice. A simple style-book dictate stating that all politicians will have their party noted upon first mention, in the first paragraph, would largely cure the Guess That Party! syndrome. ((Though the MSM would still put "GOP" in the headline, making each scandal about a Republican about the Republican Party as a whole, while all Democratic scandals would just be about a single man's failings. But there's little to be done about that.)

So, why does the media not simply make a simple bright-line common-sense rule about this?

Because they don't want to. They want to continue omitting party affiliation in Democratic scandals and hyping it in Republican scandals. Without a simple rule, they can claim their choices are based on either "nuance" or "news judgment" or simple negligence. If they had such a rule, they'd have to apply it evenly, and they simply don't want to do that.

The simplest example of media bias there is and it can be fixed by a one-sentence addition to the style guide.

But they won't do it.

[Update - PA]
Not surprisingly, a prior piece by this Klepper person (who appears to be a serial impersonator of a reporter) on the Morrison flap studiously ignored party affiliation too.

posted by Ace at 07:14 PM

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