The case for diversity
Over at National Review's "The Corner," Jonah Goldberg makes a succinct case for ideological diversity in newsrooms. The post was prompted by CNN's Drew Griffin's misquoting of a National Review article by Byron York that I mentioned here.
Before Byron's post closes the issue for all time, I'd just like to make a quick point. Some people want to blame CNN's bias, others its incompetence. I think in many respects this is a false choice. Every institution has its biases. Every instutution is prone to groupthink. Drew Griffin might have made the same mistake no matter what, but generally the more ideologically diverse an organization the more likely it is that mistakes will be caught. Take the Dan Rather memogate story. It would not have required a rocket scientist to catch the myriad problems with that story. Indeed, all it would have taken is someone in the room who was not only skeptical, but who actually did not want the story to be true and so was keen to find flaws with it. 60 Minutes in general, and Dan Rather in particular, had no such person on its payroll. So egregious errors made it through the system without anyone saying, "Wait a minute, maybe we shouldn't rely on a blind orthodontist with an ax to grind be our document expert." (I exaggerate for dramatic effect). If Drew Griffin had a conservative associate producer who could spend 2 minutes discussing what Byron's story was about, odds are that Griffin wouldn't have made his outrageous mistake.
This problem isn't limited to TV media. I have no doubt that most major newspapers in this country are so ideologically monolithic that stories can make their way from reporter to line editor to copy editor to the printed page without a single conservative reading the story. That's bad news for journalism -- but nothing new.
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CNN really showed their bias and incompetence. I don't think Griffin's misquoting of Byron York's comment was a "mistake". He did it to hurt and embarrass her, but only succeeded in embarrassing himself. He demonstrated very aptly the traits he was accusing Sarah Palin of having by showing his incompetence, stupidity and lack of qualifications to question her, the same traits that describe those liberal, illuminati media goofballs who are of his ilk. Griffin, you certainly made a dumb ass of yourself and don't deserve to be called a reporter.