You're probably tired by now of hearing about l'affaire Weigel, but this inside-the-Beltway dustup has actually revealed a lot of interesting things about the current tumultuous state of American journalism. The absurdity of the situation, which could have been headlined, "Private e-mails reveal journalist to harbor opinions; promptly loses job," was obvious from the beginning. But some of the reaction also casts an interesting light on the audience. Apparently, because David Weigel's ideology is rather difficult to pigeonhole -- he's a libertarian/liberal/conservative -- people were confused by him. Check out this response from The Washington Post's ombudsman:
[Ezra] Klein's blog posts clearly pass through a liberal prism. For that reason, liberals have a comfort level with what he writes, and conservatives know where he's coming from, even if they disagree. In contrast, Weigel's blog seemed to confuse many conservatives who contacted me. Was he supposed to be a neutral reporter, some wondered? Others complained that he was a liberal trying to write about conservatives he disdained.
In other words, despite the fact that Weigel is almost certainly the best reporter covering the conservative movement, conservatives weren't sure how to read his reporting. Was he, in his heart of hearts, a conservative, in which case they should believe everything he told them? Or was he a liberal, in which case they should dismiss his reporting and analysis as a despicable pile of lies? The idea that they might just read his work and judge it on its own merits doesn't seem to have been an option.
All of us are susceptible to this ideological blinkering to some extent. But should big, important news organizations like The Washington Post be encouraging us to assume that we should only believe reporting if we know beforehand that the journalist is in sympathy with our opinions?
-- Paul Waldman
(Also see Adam's post on Weigel)
