Perhaps it’s James Poniewozik’s work as a pop-culture columnist, not a politico, that allows him to see the sham of left-leaning journalists pretending to be objective.

Poniewozik admits in the first sentence of his latest TIME column that he voted for Barack Obama. He spends the rest of his column explaining how his colleagues could boost their credibility by exercising the same degree of openness about their political preferences:


The reasons not to say whom you’re voting for boil down mainly to the
interests of journalists, not those of readers and viewers. It would be
a pain in the neck. Campaign sources would mistrust you. Radio hosts
and bloggers would have a field day. Readers would become suspicious.


But more suspicious than they are already? The biggest reason to go
open kimono is that the present system does what journalism should
never do: it perpetuates a lie. Modern political journalism is based on
the bogus concept of neutrality (that people can be steeped in
campaigns yet not care who wins) and the legitimate ideal of fairness
(that people can place intellectual integrity and rigor over their
rooting interests). Voting and disclosing would expose the sham of
neutrality?which few believe anyway?and compel opinion and news writers
alike to prove, story by story, that fairness is possible anyway.
Partisans, bloggers and media critics are toxically obsessed with
ferreting out reporters’ preferences; treating them as shameful secrets
only makes matters worse.

I prefer Poniewozik’s arguments to those offered recently by TIME editor Richard Stengel in a critique of newspaper editorial endorsements. Perhaps Stengel could learn a thing or two from the pop-culture page.