Bill Keller doesn't think it is the New York Times' job "to pass judgment on whether this program is legal or effective." (NYT, various, yesterday and today). The program he's talking about is the government's examination of bank records. Since when is the judgment of a program's legality or effectiveness an entirely subjective thing, outside of the realm of journalism, unrelated to truth or fact?
Keller seems to have listened to Stephen Colbert's White House Correspondence Dinner talk. (You know, the part where he talks about how the president's advisors advise him, he decides (the "Decider") and the press writes those decisions down. This is "press release journalism" at its best (or worst). If the paper can't make a determination as to the legality or effectiveness of a program, that's one thing, and they should say that. But, last time I checked, most things are either legal or illegal, and have some measurable degree of effectiveness. Things like legality and effectiveness are facts - information - and they are a crucial part of any story on any governmental action or program.
This is just another case of the Right using the Left's old "relativity of facts" argument against it. If everyone has their own, equally valid perspective on all issues in any way relating to politics, than we have to keep that out of our stories and just report the who where why and how - since apparently the "what" is no longer a reportable fact. Whatever happened to A=A? I believe it is a journalist's job to report the facts - how legality or effectiveness are not facts, I do not know. We often get to caught up in quotes - seeing "both sides of the story."
Apparently, the new rule of journalism is that if two sources disagree on something, than we should put both in the article with equal respect, instead of making an educated analysis of where the facts are. Dispute of a fact doesn't make it any less of one. The Holocaust happened, but people still deny it. And even whether program is legal or illegal (not that you could tell from the Times article), someone arguing the opposite side will not change the truth of the matter.
And how about Sen. Jim Bunning accusing the Times of treason? What is this, 1984? Has the man even read the constitution? But enough about Senators. Let's talk about where the real power is - the executive. And this administration, more than any ever, just has no regard for the law as it is outlined in the constitution or legal precedent. They don't believe it applies to them, and they cynically (or arrogantly) make very little effort to even pay lip service to the ideas of checks and balances, procedure, or limits on presidential power. They just keep pushing, and no one stops them. It's like we're living in a alternate reality.
