There have been moments in the general election when the one-sidedness of our site — when nearly every story was some variation on how poorly McCain was doing or how well Barack Obama was faring — has made us cringe.
As it happens, McCain’s campaign is going quite poorly and Obama’s is going well. Imposing artificial balance on this reality would be a bias of its own.
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This is a good explanation of how journalists attempt to report "objectively" on both sides of the debate. Few journalists can resist reporting on the "horse race" aspects of the campaign, or avoid the tendency to get caught up in the dynamics, but the greater problem is the "false balance" that many journalists fall for. The classic example is reporting that some believe the earth is round, others believe it is flat. We report, you decide. What is missing from this article is the journalists' general revulsion at the sleazy, deceptive campaigns run by the Republican party, starting with Lee Atwater's dirty tricks under Richard Nixon. His protege Karl Rove continued the practice and John McCain has done more of the same, hiring the same Rove operatives that slimed him in South Carolina in 2000. Robocalls, Swift-boating, whisper campaigns, negative ads, the racist "southern strategy," and other common Republican practices have raised deep skepticism among journalists that frequently influence their reporting about John McCain and other Republican candidates. Harris and Vandehei fail to mention this, perhaps because they are still reflecting the false balance of much of the media.
