Are there equal sides to a news story?

A couple of days ago, I got to see George Clooney's "Good Night and Good Luck (2005)" starring himself, David Strathairn and a host of other top actors. It's filmed in black and white, documentary style, weaving actual footage of Edward R. Murrow's "See it Now" with speeches given by the famous journalist. The plot line highlights the editorial pressures coming from CBS' management and the smear campaign mounted by Senator McCarthy's allies. While highlighting the hysteria of the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings, the underlying message for today's audience is to be suspicious of our government, its intentions in the war on terrorism and that "dissent is not disloyalty." It's a great movie even if you don't agree with the producer's sublime message. The acting is great and I think it sheds a little light on a dim period in our nation's history.

One line that caught my attention came from the Murrow character. He said, "I simply cannot accept that there are, on every story two equal and logical sides to an argument. Call it editorializing, if you'd like." Well, is it? Is it editorializing if a journalist reports more of one side of the story than another? Additionally, is that reporter obligated to present both sides of a story equally, like time given to politicians for public comment? I'd say no because at times its impossible to give equal coverage to a story and sometimes impractical to present both sides of an issue with equal reason and conviction.

The movie shows the case of an Air Force Lieutenant, Milo Radulovich, who was fired on suspicion of associating with known communists. The movie shows how CBS was able to interview Radulovich, his family and friends, but was stonewalled by the Air Force and War Department. It even showed two colonels visiting the producer to warn them to kill the show if they knew what's good for them. Stepping back, its pretty easy to argue that Murrow and CBS couldn't equally present both sides of this issue simply because one side chose not to participate. The same can be said of many news stories involving people being indicted. From Barry Bonds, to Richard Jewell, these news worthy(?) people couldn't or wouldn't present their side of the story because they're often advised not to. The fact is whether the story is right or wrong, one can't claim a story is editorially tainted simply because both sides haven't had an equal say.

On the other hand, "fair and balanced" doesn't mean a story is unbiased either. Fox News uses this very tag line and few would argue its journalism isn't editorially biased. Hannity and Colmes could be an example of fair and balanced punditry, if you believe pitting a badger against a bunny is fair too. More seriously, the recent Supreme Court ruling, reinstating Habeus Corpus for Guantanamo Bay detainees shows that the very reporting of this ruling may reveal editorial bias. While most of the major cable networks like CNN reported on the ruling, Fox News' own Supreme Court web page has no reference. For the record, I couldn't find any reference to yesterday's ruling on Fox News.com Clearly, the least Fox would have done is paste a news service story to their web. Their silence speaks volumes.

Given some of these examples, its clear that journalists and news organizations, being human and subject to perspectives shaped by their lives and surrounding environment, invariably put their take of truth into the stories they report. Furthermore, equal and fair coverage doesn't guarantee a story will be unbiased because these professionals can insinuate their perspective into both sides of an issue. In the end, we, as consumers of news have to look at these stories with a critical eye. Even when we see articles that we agree with, we have to take a moment to look for a bias and be the final arbiter of truth.