“Facts”
by zunguzungu
Arthur Brisbane, begging NYT readers to tell him what journalism is:
I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.
Send us your reckons:
zunguzungu 
I put up a comment on that Iran correction post earlier this week, asking again why Friedman is allowed to misstate his contemporaneous rationales for the iraq invasion as compared here: http://bit.ly/sobq66
The comment did not get out of moderation. Off topic, I guess….
Brisbane says: “I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.”
That term, ‘newsmakers.’ It’s new to me, and it’s kind of gross. If you think about the relationship between a ‘news reporter’ and a ‘newsmaker,’ it seems like the reporter’s job is to distribute the ‘news’ that the ‘newsmaker’ makes. Like the reporter is harvesting stories the way a farmer harvests eggs. The farmer doesn’t make the eggs! That’d be silly! The reporter doesn’t make the stories! (snark)
That is, of course, the exact _opposite_ of what many people (mostly not journalists, it seems) think ‘the news’ should be.
A little more analysis: if what a reporter does is ‘write about newsmakers’ then it makes perfect sense that said reporter is unconcerned with the truth, meaning, value, or implication of the news said maker makes.
Ugh.