But surely, in this case, it's not about what's going on inside someone's head so much as what can empirically be proven - it doesn't really matter what his personal beliefs are. Whatever Obama believes or doesn't believe, he's attended a Christian church for twenty years, and this, combined with the fact that he says he's a Christian, makes him a Christian - or 'practising Christian', if you prefer. These things are on record; they're not opinions, they're provable facts.

So, there's evidence, not opinion, supporting the premise that he is a Christian, not a Muslim. Therefore, it was up to Snow to contradict the faulty assumption that he's a Muslim - not by saying, 'Well, he says he's not a Muslim', but by saying, 'Well, he's a practising Christian'. It's sad that it should matter whether he's seen worshipping God, Allah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but since it does, it's up to the journalist to accurately state the facts. Anything short of that is doing us all a disservice.

Posted at May 14, 2008 5:07 PM in response to An example of one of those well-informed, educated WEST VIRGINIA voters.

Been lurking here for months, but had to create a profile to respond to your post.

A journalist's responsibility, first and foremost, is to inform the people. The point of the profession is to provide responsible, factual information so that people can exercise their civic rights and duties effectively. Problems arise when journalists choose to elide opinion with fact, and to repeat this kind of demonstrable falsehood on the grounds that it's somebody's opinion, and that every opinion is as valid as the next. This sort of thing, as Snow shows, just leads to repeating nonsense Republican talking points ad absurdum and bringing the level of political discourse down to the completely useless, if not the downright dangerous.

There's a good debate going on about this over at The Economist's Democracy in America blog - the link is http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2008/05/obama_is_not_a_muslim.cfm. One good bit from them: 'Journalistic objectivity should not extend to passivity in the face of pernicious lies like this: it promotes the sort of spineless inanity that demands "intelligent design" be placed on equal footing with evolution, or the babbling idiocy of cable-news shows featuring two sides screaming at each other. A journalist's responsibility should be to the truth, and to accuracy, not to fastidiously trimming the hedges of his objectivity.'

Sorry for getting a bit exercised first time out - next time, less cranky more snarky :)

Posted at May 14, 2008 2:05 PM in response to An example of one of those well-informed, educated WEST VIRGINIA voters.