Bias and "the Appearance of Bias"

Still wondering why the mainstream media are having difficulty adapting to the social media world? Check out a thoroughly confused column from the Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander, in the wake of the Post's precipitous decision to fire a columnist because his political views became known.

On the one hand, Alexander says, the solution to any confusion about reporters who also write opinion pieces, or write opinionated blogs is to be "completely transparent about what people do . . . and completely transparent about where people stand."

On the other hand, those in traditional reporting positions should remain "nonpartisan, unbiased and free from slant in their presentation in the paper and in any other public forum. There should be no appearance of conflict."

Am I the only one who thinks that those two statements are contradictory? In the first, Alexander is advocating complete transparency, a principle I support (though I'm not sure how practice complete transparency is. In the second, however, he is arguing for complete opacity: under no circumstances should readers know the political views of people in "traditional reporting positions."

Unless those people have no political views--something that's virtually inconceivable--that surely requires hiding those views from readers? Surely any attempt to eliminate the "appearance of conflict" must necessarily involve either concealing the real views of reporters or pretending they don't have any? That's the very opposite of transparency.

Perhaps it's time for the Post and other mainstream media outlets to start treating readers like adults--rather than patronizing them, as the headline to this column does--and to acknowledge that reporters have political views just like everyone else. Preventing a reporter from attending an environmental rally, for example, doesn't make that reporter any less committed to the cause of environmentalism; it merely obfuscates the truth.

Let's be transparent about that--and then judge the quality of a reporter's work on its merits, rather than on how well he or she conceals his true beliefs.