The Symmetry of Sin

That’s probably my favorite new phrase to come out this long and torturous presidential race. And it’s the reason why I’m not going to blog about the race anymore.

The phrase comes from one of the top advisors to one of the candidates. It means, essentially, phony impartiality by the media covering the race; that while it’s expected that political journalists doing so-called “straight” news, not commentary, be evenhanded to both sides, evenhandedness itself becomes a lie when it prevents greater truths from being told. When the topic is blatant lies being told by one campaign, the symmetry of sin calls for reporters to say, essentially, that the other side does it, too. Even if doesn’t, or doesn’t do it nearly as much. It’s “objectivity” that is extremely misleading.

There seems to be, in this campaign, a kind of waking up by the mainstream media that this is a problem. Some TV and newspaper political reporters have in recent weeks begun calling out offending campaigns without having to follow it up with the “they all do it” conclusion. This is a positive development, but it’s a work in progress. In my role as an anchor/blogger here at the CW11, it’s a line I still can’t cross, and with so much at stake in this election, I can’t bring myself to peddle this phony evenhandedness on even my small (but growing!) readership.

So we’ll talk politics after the election.