I’ve long been a critic of political reporting, not just because of the obvious bias but also for the formula writing and artful phrasing that camouflage that quite often there are no facts in a story to support its basic premise. Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com dissects a perfect example today from a Politico report by Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan:
Notice the way the report reads: the whip race “is expected” to include McCarthy, Rogers, and Sessions. Boehner’s allies “believe … Cantor is positioning himself” for the top job. Compare that to the lead paragraph, where Bresnahan and Sherman allege that the expectation of victory “has set off a frenzy of behind-the-scenes jockeying” for the top two positions, along with the headline (probably not written by Sherman and Bresnahan) that “palace intrigue intensifies” for the GOP.
Really? Nothing in the specific reporting shows that anything has happened yet outside of the imagination of the reporters. These certainly could be the fights that erupt after the November midterms, but nothing that Sherman or Bresnahan report says that they actually have begun.
In journalism as it is practiced today this is called reporting. In any other profession it would be known as “making *stuff* up.”
