j.r. leonard

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

There are a number of problems with this take, the first of which is that the voters, whom our press is entrusted with informing, are not at all comparable to the passive spectators of a sporting event. They (we) are active, vital participants in the process at hand.

There's a reason the press has been designated historically as "the Fourth Estate." They have an important role in the democratic process, as do the public they inform.

But also: to insist the press should be striving for "accuracy," but without seeking to discern "truth," seems like a rather...unwieldy imperative

I’m not insisting on anything. Journalists should do whatever hey want to do. I’m making a factual claim that almost no journalists have the ability to discern the “truth” of what they’re reporting. They’re just not qualified. And we see the results of this every day

That's not a factual claim it's a highly subjective, sweeping and unprovable generalization. A factual claim would be something like "the new Prince release is posted now and Jay has no more time for this back and forth"

No. It’s a fact because it can be investigated. For example, most science journalists are qualified to report on the state of scientific discovery, but their ability to assess the truth of the underlying science is limited by the fact that they’re journalists, not scientists