WHEN JOURNALISM BECAME "HE SAID, SHE SAID,"

…  IT COULDN'T REPORT THE TRUTH ANY LONGER.

Some time in the past 30 years or so, journalists changed the way they report.  Perhaps it was because they heard the cries against them, people like the dog handlers in Birmingham or the governor standing in the school-house door,  and so they decided to give the criers equal time.  (The criers were very loud; for that matter, they haven't stopped.)  Whatever the reason, reporters began to equate even-handedness with "he said, she said."

From that point on, Journalism School (or "J School") unceasingly put out the theme that equality of treatment demanded that every side be heard from. 

The end result was that Nazis became "some very fine people."  There are no "fine" Nazis.  They are just plain evil.

There are no "good" racist lynch mobs, no "good" anti-Semites, no "fine" people filled with such hatred that they harm, even kill, other people.

Yet J Schools continue to turn out people who call themselves journalists when they graduate, people who go on to dutifully write that 'good said, evil said,' and they call that even-handed.  Which works for them, obviously, at least so long as they make money for the hedge funds that own their outlets.

These are the people who claim to tell us the truth.  Except they don't, not under their outdated J School model,  "he said, she said."  Not when they write only what makes a profit.  They – and we who depend on them to report what is actually happening – need a different model.  We deserve better.

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