Just the facts, ma'am

Original: June 7, 2007
===============

Almost 10 years ago now I attended a school to become a basically trained photojournalist for the military. Nothing too intense, the first three months of the school focused on print journalism and the second half on broadcast, altogether about the equivalent of an Associates degree; just the basics.

Like many schools I've attended, I didn't pay real close attention. One thing I do remember learning though is that within the broad scope of journalism, there are a number of subsets, and each of these categories has its own set of rules.

When reporting news, one should apply the Dragnet method of "Just the facts ma'am." Feature writing gives one license to bust out his book of adverbs and adjectives and other such flowery language. Those smart enough to write for an opinion column, or produce an editorial are allowed to – you guessed it – opine and editorialize. And never the thrain (there are no rules here, so I can make up words) shall meet.

I made you suffer through all of that to show you this:

The White House suffered an embarrassing setback in its effort to try detainees at Guantánamo Bay on Monday when military judges threw out all charges against the first two prisoners to come before the newly-constituted commission. – Financial Times, June 4, 2007.

Which could just have easily been written like this:

Military judges on Monday threw out all charges against the first two Guantánamo Bay prisoners to come before the newly- constituted commission.

Without debating support or lack thereof for the White House or its current occupant, I will ask this question: Did Mr. Sevastopulo need to throw in his two cents in labeling the incidents as embarrassing for the White House?

The expression of dissatisfaction with an administration's policies/actions is an important part of any democracy, but it's not news. Neither is gloating over perceived failure of those policies of actions.

To paraphrase my friend Eric, I am rather enamored with my own opinion so I understand the draw toward editorializing, which is one of the reasons I don't really like writing news. It's boring. But when I do, I do it with the stoic tenacity of Jack Webb. I'm often enthralled by other's opinions as well, but they don't belong in the news.

In reporting news, today's media needs to take a step back to yesteryear and borrow a page from Webb's book and start giving us just the facts.