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Opinion writers and partisan advocacy Wednesday, Jun 25, 2008 By David J. Sanders When opinion journalists substitute objectivity and proportionality for something less desirable - personal bias, political predisposition or blind ideological ties - their work becomes hard to distinguish from partisan advocacy. My nearly eight years as a columnist have included what I must have thought were inconspicuous trips into partisan journalism's ghettos, but those jaunts didn't go unnoticed. In response, my editor encouraged me to be more nuanced, readers chided my predictability, and, on rare occasions, colleagues called me out in print. I like to think that I've matured and grown, but I also realize that I must be on guard against creeping back to an undesirable place. Gov. Mike Beebe and his administration have been the subject of glowing, one-sided profiles in Democrat-friendly publications - the relatively new Talk Business Quarterly and the Arkansas Times. The long-form pieces were written by Democratic?leaning (and award-winning) journalists, who showered Arkansas' popular Democratic governor with endless and, at times, discomforting personal and professional praise. For example, both pieces hailed Beebe and Morril Harriman, his chief of staff and former state Senate colleague, as the two smartest guys in state government, which these two sharp-dressed compatriots earned the hard way. Well cataloged was Beebe's near domination over the Legislature during his long career in the state Senate. On one hand, nothing happened without his and Harriman's approval; one would easily conclude they were the two cogs in the wheel that kept everything in state government moving. But, on the other hand, Beebe, the legislative "fixer," had nothing to do with state Sen. Nick Wilson or his illegal schemes that ultimately landed him in the federal penitentiary. The two men only shared indignation and animosity toward each other that had built up over years of a strained relationship. The other side of the Beebe-Wilson narrative, which was excluded from both stories, alleges that Beebe was passive and unwilling to challenge Wilson. In fact, the Arkansas Times printed Beebe's reassuring account of a how a female FBI agent investigating Wilson's corruption told him he was OK. "She said one thing she'd learned during the investigation was that a senator was either a Beebe man or a Wilson man," Beebe told the Arkansas Times. It was unclear if the journalist made any attempt to corroborate Beebe's story. Talk Business Quarterly's seven-page spread focused mostly on the significance of Beebe and Harriman's relationship, which Beebe likened to the tight bond enjoyed by the Kennedy brothers - JFK and RFK. But when Beebe's press spokesmen compared Beebe and Harriman to President Bartlett and Leo McGarry, the fictional characters from NBC's "West Wing" known for their stream of consciousness ramblings aimed at educating the White House staff and saving the world, it was included. To say that a lot of what was written was as over the top would be an understatement. Lacking were the hard or uncomfortable questions one might ask a governor who governs with little or no opposition, especially one who has demonstrated a penchant for blurring the lines between elected officials and those who represent special interests. But, from beginning to end, our journalists left little doubt that they feel either blessed or lucky to have the state under Beebe and Company's watch and care; that's OK as long as their advocacy isn't passed off as objectivity. David sanders is a special columnist for the Stephens media's Arkansas news bureau in little rock. E-mail: DavidJsanders@aol.com |
