Reporting on facts as assertions, and journalistic balance

Newswriters have a compulsive habit of couching all assertions in someone's point-of-view, preferring "Person X says that Y is true," rather than saying "Y is true." It gets you off the hook if it turns out that Y isn't true.

But as Slacktivist points out, there are factual matters that are actually, verifiably true, and couching them in someone else's words transforms them from facts into suppositions. This is most damaging in the political arena, where news-organs are reporting on the fact of Bush's deficit spending as though it were a Democrat talking-point, as opposed to a verifiable number:

Over the next 10 years, cumulative deficits are likely to add almost $2.4 trillion to the national debt, the CBO estimate said.

The forecast comes as Democrats campaigning to run against President Bush charge that he has turned a surplus into a deficit.

The key here is "Democrats ... charge." After the first two sentences, this is a rather strange attribution. During President Bush's tenure, the surplus has, in fact, been turned into a deficit. Despeignes seems uncomfortable simply stating fiscal statistics relating to the incumbent administration when those facts may seem unflattering. So, to avoid any appearance of bias, the reporter attributes any unflattering facts to the "charges" of the president's political opponents.

Link (via Electrolite)