j.r. leonard

Imagine a basketball game where the refs told one team "no matter how many fouls you commit we're only gonna call three of them, so we don't look biased." Now imagine this was happening with something way, way, way more important than a basketball game.https://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/1136632892686249984 …

For this analogy to work, you have to pretend that the media’s role is akin to that of a referee. It’s not. The media are the media, the sideline commentators. They should act accordingly

There's room for commentary, but referee should be a role played by media. Journalists examine competing claims and figure out what's true. It's how we come to a shared understanding of facts. Baquet's "balanced" treatment of asymmetrical phenomenon distorts reality.

There are almost no journalists who are qualified to decide what is true. Their value add isn’t in arbitrating truth. It’s in reporting accurate facts and the necessary context. Just like the sideline commentators aren’t there to make calls. They’re there for analysis