I’ve complained from time to time about editorializing in the news stories of the Washington Post, but today’s article by reporter Darryl Fears on the changes at the Civil Rights Commission takes the cake.
Here’s the paragraph that ought to go into the textbooks on fairness (not) in reporting:
Liberals are wondering how conservatives — some of whom have said that the Commission has lost its relevance and many of whom oppose programs such as affirmative action — will fulfill the Commission’s role as the conscience of the federal government, as it has been called.
Fears doesn’t quite say here that opposition to affirmative action is unconscionable. Not quite, but almost; here’s the paragraph that immediately follows:
“The issue isn’t whether they are Democrat or Republican. It’s whether they will continue to advance the mission of civil rights,” said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau. “The commission came out of the civil rights movement, and its mission was to advance ways of fully integrating the diversity of American citizens.”
Fears, in short, is more than sympathetically reporting the liberal belief that opposition to affirmative action is inconsistent with a commitment to civil rights.
Abigail Thernstrom, an independent who will be the vice chairman of the commission, is described as someone “who, unlike Berry, does not support affirmative action.”
Shelton, the NAACP Washington bureau chief, is quoted observing that “affirmative action is a tool that was brought about by the civil rights movement.”
Well, yes. But is it sharp or dull? Does it still do the job it was designed to do? Is the purpose of the Civil Rights Commission to sanctify everything that was done or said by “the civil rights movement”?
Also note this curious paragraph, which follows the lede:
But after Berry, the liberal chairman, who is black, and Reynoso, the liberal vice chairman, who is Latino, stepped down Tuesday, the composition of the commission changed. President Bush appointed a black Republican, Gerald A. Reynolds, to replace Berry as chairman, and another black Republican, Ashley L. Taylor, to replace Reynoso as a member. Abigail Thernstrom, an independent who is conservative and white, became the new vice chairman.
What is the relevance of race and ethnicity to “the composition” of the Commission if a black and a Hispanic are replaced by two blacks? It is surely relevant that liberals are being replaced by conservatives, but why do race and ethnicity always have to be brought to center stage?
Fears takes such pains to point out everyone’s race and ethnicity that you’d think he’d insist the Post identify him not as “Washington Post Staff Writer” but ” Washington Post Black Staff Writer.”
UPDATE [3:25PM]
An unusually knowledgeable and math-proficient reader sends the following comment:
It might also have been worth mentioning [Fears’] delicious fuzzy math. “Thus the commission went from a 5 to 3 liberal majority to a 6 to 2 conservative majority.” Add 2 new conservatives to the 3 you have and you get 6. Subtract 2 retiring liberals from your 5 and somehow you’re down to only 2! Is that what they call the multiplier effect or something?
UPDATE II [11 Dec.]
Frequrent commenter notherbob2 has a good post on this topic, and adds some links to others.
Don’t you think that it’s unfair of you to say that “Fears, in short, is more than sympathetically reporting the liberal belief that opposition to affirmative action is inconsistent with a commitment to civil rights,” considering all that he’s done is quote Hilary Shelton, one of the directors of the organization that his article concerns? You don’t really seem to have a validate argument. In fact, you even admit that “Fear doesn’t quite say here that opposition to affirmative action is unconscionable.” The truth is, that, from the passage that you’ve provided, he doesn’t say anything remotely close to what you assume him to mean.
Furthermore, why wouldn’t the race of the newly appointed chairpersons be a relevent issue? After all, aren’t the primary interests of the Civil Rights Commission inherently of racial issues?
Shockingly, the WAPO is at least identifying liberals as such.
Sometimes, when you just happen to be in the right spot at the right time, you have to toot your own horn a little to attract the attention of others who missed being there. Read: http://page1of3.blogspot.com/2004/12/sometimes-government-works.html to see why Berry et al had to go.
I unfortunately cannot follow up with what the new appointments mean. I sure as hell know why Berry et al had to go.
Dave – Briefly, no. That is, I don’t think it unfair to say that Fears is not engaged in straight, fair reporting. His piece, as I read it, quite clearly echoes the belief of “the liberals” that civil rights and affirmative action are virtual synonyms, that if you oppose the latter you oppose the former.
You say “all that he’s done is quote Hilary Shelton,” but that’s not true. His whole piece revolved around the consequences of the commission abandoning its support for affirmative action. For example, Fears writes that “liberals” wonder how a commission that opposes affirmative action can fulfill its mission, but he doesn’t give any time to conservatives (heaven forbid) to give their response to that canard. (Some of the conspiracy theorists among we right wing extremists might think it’s no accident that “canard,” a staple of liberal rhetoric these days, comes from the French word for duck.)
It is a liberal conceit that only liberals believe in civil rights, but it is no more than a conceit.