Corner of 3rd and Union last night, the air's full of crazies. The rabid anti-Hillary crazies, fueled by and fueling right-wing panic even as they convince the mainstream that she's unelectable because she's so polarizing (“Just look at us!”). The Ron Paul crazies, all suited and tied. The 9/11 crazies in search of evil conspiracies.
So what do the street crazies have to do with, say, the newspaper crazies? It's the possibility, however small, that they're right, the maybe-maybe grain-of-truth. And by the rules of the game, if it's possible it must be given credence.
How else to explain the story in the Chicago Tribune, that rediscovers Prohibition? A "lifestyle" writer in the Windy City googles her way through the latest pseudo-science and finds three unrelated “studies” that blame alcohol consumption for death by cirrhosis. Throw in a couple of senseless charts and bingo: drinking kills you.
Some jackass editor at Fairview Fanny (and nowhere else in the country) rips the piece off the wire and slaps it on the front page of Sunday's Seattle Times. Below the fold in the print version, it somehow gets top billing online. Naturally it becomes the most-emailed story of the day. But nobody's calling bullshit, because, supposedly, we know alcohol's not really healthy. ("Researchers have known for 20 years...")
Bullshit, I say. Every reputable scientific study over the past 100 years shows that moderate consumption of alcohol—red wine, distilled spirits, whatever--is good for the heart, and makes life more pleasant.
I don't blame the writer for her initiative, just for her sloppy reporting and for taking dictation from the pleasure police. I do blame the editor for running the story without the slightest qualm that it flies in the face of scientific consensus without a drop of balance.
Reporting has to be more than aiming a videocamera at the crazies on the corner. It has to be more than partisan blogging. And it desperately needs intellectually honest editing. Not because "It could be true." Yeah, sure, and George sent the Watergate Plumbers into the World Trade Center with explosives.
Posted by Ronald Holden at October 23, 2007 12:04 PM
The International Kitchen
Cooking school vacations in Italy, France & Spain.
Who links to me?
