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A few years ago, I had an encounter on an elevator in the National Press Club that stuck with me. Thinking back, it’s easy for me to connect that particular moment with a recent New York Times feature that has stirred up some interesting chatter online.
Yesterday we looked at the Washington Post‘s “fact check” about Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s support of eugenics. In that fact check, Sanger’s distasteful views were contextualized and she was put forth as a “racial pioneer.” What’s more, the person who mentioned her racism was labeled not just a liar but the worst kind of liar.
Back in my reporting days, there was no assignment that I feared more than writing a simple obituary. I know many other reporters who feel the same way.
We’ve been living under the “fact check” era at newspapers for three or four years now. I tend to agree with the Wall Street Journal‘s James Taranto when he writes:
Today was a long day and I didn’t get to dig into the tree-pulp edition of The Washington Post until after dark, during a later-than-normal commuter train home to the south side of Baltimore.
So let’s say that you are reading a lengthy story about a famous Baptist preacher from the deep South, from a location in the heart of the Bible Belt.
The pros in the Obama White House are facing a number of tough decisions as they head into the 2012 election. However, nobody expected a Democrat to face a growing sense of panic about the Jewish vote.
Regular GetReligion readers may have picked up, through the years, that I spent my teen years in the polluted Texas refinery town to end all polluted Texas refinery towns — Port Arthur. I went to high school with the younger brother of Janis Joplin and, trust me, I have always understood the roots of her anger about her hometown. Click here, folks.
As you would imagine, folks here inside the DC beltway take monuments pretty seriously — especially those linked to the National Mall.
