Oops, your bias is showing

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Was Trump threatening a bitch slap or a punch or just 
a bunch of unsubstantiated insults?

Having worked as a journalist in various forms for a good portion of my life I have often found

myself defending the media against all kinds of criticism. It's been an almost automatic reaction to point out the attempted objectivity knowing full well how easily it is to let our opinions sneak into what we publish for the readers.

Here's an example of how that opinion lurks in the backs of your minds. Many years ago as a news editor on a small paper I had quite a heated discussion with a rising reporter about the use of adjectives, my point being that each adjective colors a noun somehow and often that use can expose our biases just as quickly as a straight-out declarative sentence. His argument was that adjectives add detail and credibility to a story among other things.

 A couple of years later that reporter led a team that wrote a Pulitzer-Prize-winning series on the influence of the Teamsters Union in Alaska. After one particular story about the extravagances of union leaders, he told me he had written about a "sleek corporate jet" the union owned. Then he admitted he saw what I meant about adjectives, admitted that the use of "sleek" colored the statement with a kind of negative judgment.

Fast forward to this year. Early on at least one media outlet allowed candidate Donald Trump to attend interviews by telephone rather than in person. To be sure there was a lot of criticism, but the practice continued for several months. Why the objections? I mean you are going to get answers to your questions so what's the harm? Well, here is one type of harm, giving him unfair advantage over his opponents. You see, if an interview is conducted via telephone, the candidate can be sitting there with any number of experts and advisors helping him form answers to questions. In a face-to-face interview a candidate cannot hide his ignorance and just as well, can't hide his knowledge. This seemed to be the press giving Trump a pass on personal accountability, something no other candidate was afforded.

Journalists can go overboard with the fairness doctrine. Sometimes, and I am guilty of this as well, we go to such great extents to give all sides of a story we spend more time on the opposition view than we do on the main point of the story. That seemed to be the way with Trump.

Still, the soft handling of the candidate was very obvious in an article CNN published on its web site July 28, giving Trump's reaction to the opposition's convention.

The lead paragraph included this quote from Trump saying he wanted to: "hit a number of those speakers so hard, their heads would spin. They'd never recover."

The very next paragraph read: "Trump often uses the term "hit" to mean verbally attack, rather than physical contact."

Keep in mind CNN employs Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

Whether Lewandowski had anything to do with the paragraph is unknown, but you just have to wonder why CNN felt it needed to virtually apologize for the candidate's threats to punch a bunch of Democrats. He has certainly made or encouraged physical threats against opponents in the past.

In truth, it is the candidate's responsibility to watch what he says, not journalism's.  There are times when an explanation paragraph is necessary. But this isn't one of them.

Trump said he wanted to "hit a number of people." It was up to him to choose the words that best expressed what he thought. He said "hit." There are plenty of other words and phrases he could have used if he meant something else.

Picture this personality in delicate negotiations with foreign leaders, or with opposing members of Congress. Is he going to have aides sitting next to him saying "what the president meant to say was …?" Or worse, would he have CNN reporters there to explain his meaning for him? When the president says "bomb" he just means heavily criticize.

Here's the video of him saying he will hit people. You can make your own decision about what he means.


It becomes more and more difficult to explain and defend the media these days.

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