Jon & Jon,

I endorsed the one-sided story only as a temporary expedient for a wire service. Perhaps a different example would help me explain my theory a little more clearly.

Let’s say N.C. State has a football coach named Chick Tomato. An AP reporter learns through sources or through direct contact with Mr. Tomato that N.C. State has fired its coach.

The AP reporter reaches Tomato, who admits he has been fired and has some choice comments about his former employers.

The AP reporter has a journalistic duty to contact N.C. State to get its side of the story. In the meantime, no AP reporter is going to sit on the story he already has confirmed. He’ll run with what he has until N.C. State comments.

I might not have been clear in my earlier post that the AP reporter has a journalistic duty to add the other side of the story as soon as possible. But the special circumstances of a wire service — as opposed to a newspaper with a set publication deadline — offer the reporter a little more leeway.

A responsible subscriber of the wire service will assess the available information. If it’s one-sided, the subscriber will wait for a more evenhanded version of the story or chase the other side of the story himself.

In the case of the Christian Coalition story, it’s inexcusable for the AP reporter to have left his story with only one side covered. But I would not have had a problem with that story if that was the first URGENT or BULLETIN (or even the 1st Lead-Writethru) issued once the news broke.