The outrage of " balanced"

Stung by charges that much of television reporting lacks any semblance of professional journalistic standards, some producers started touting "balance" in their reporting. FoxNews even made it the slogan of their ultra-biased news reporting.

Catching the words but missing the tune, they made it even worse by simply interviewing someone from both sides of a controversy, but still without any attempt to analyze the differences or challenge the obvious distortions.

Now, in an exit interview as he's giving up his long career as TV interviewer, Larry King has done just the same thing, criticizing Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow equally for "preaching" their points of view; whereas he, Larry, praises his own style, saying he never learned anything while he was talking, so he tried to just listen to his interviewees.

So: Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow are just alike, huh, only mirror images in their political views?

Bullshit. Hannity does exactly what King says. He preaches his own views, distorting what he needs to in order to sell those views.

Rachel Maddow, on the other hand, clearly has views; and she is not shy about letting them be known. But hers is one of the most honest news analysis shows, because she let's the other person present his views and she listens carefully, very carefully -- and then she challenges the logic, the facts, the conclusions. She also tells them where she does agree. In other words, she actually does journalism -- she subjects the report to analysis based on knowing her facts and using her skill in logical challenges. But first she gives the other side a fair hearing.

To equate the two as two opposite peas in a mirror-image pod is just what's wrong with TV news reporting and analysis today. Rachel is the one who does it right. Hannity is an echo-machine, preaching to the gullible and those who want to hear only the lies they already believe.

Here's what I really admire: instead of dumbing down and paranoia-ing up the show for popular appeal, as FoxNews does, Rachel and her producers depend on the appeal of truth, of hard-hitting but straight logical thinking and well-informed questioning. It's encouraging that there really is an audience for that -- and growing.

And, yes, I am biased. Rachel is the kind of person I admire: super-bright, articulate 37 year old, the first openly gay American to win a Rhodes Scholarship. She is candid about being lesbian, but she doesn't flaunt it or trade on it. It's just who she is. She's a graduate of Stanford University and went on to get her PhD in politics from Oxford University. Hers was the only cable news show to be nominated for the 2009 Television Critics Association Award. The interview when she recently had Jon Stewart on her show was a delight -- one to watch over and over. The two brightest people in TV news, albeit Stewart's official status is comedian.

And, yes, my beliefs also happen to agree with Rachel's positions, almost always. But it's not just bias; it all stands the test of logic and scrutiny for truth.

Ralph