Journalists Are Failing with Both-Siderism

Jackie Calmes: “American politics has changed dramatically since my post-Watergate generation of journalists began covering the story. Political journalism hasn’t kept up.”

“For years it was easy to cover ‘both sides’ — Republicans and Democrats — as equally worthy, and blameworthy, partners in democracy. While we reporters had come of age as witnesses to the unprecedented resignation of a Republican president who’d tried to corrupt the institutions of government to affect an election — imagine! — what remained was a Republican Party still capable of a creditable role in a healthy two-party system. After all, Richard M. Nixon was forced to resign when congressional leaders of his party began abandoning him. Again, imagine that, Kevin McCarthy.”

“Now, when reporters or pundits use the words “both sides” in regard to some political problem, I stop reading or listening.”

Flashback for members: None of This Is Normal