May 2017.

     Among letters that never reached print, this is one of the more interesting ones.  It responded to an opinion from an in-house editorialist at The Richmond Times-Dispatch, A. Barton Hinkle, who since has decamped for the private sector, Dominion Energy I think.  Mr. Hinkle’s op-ed was either disingenuous or clueless or cluelessly disingenuous or disingenuously clueless.  His thesis, to the extent he had one, was that the media is dishonest, politicians are dishonest, I do declare, whatever am poor, pitiful I to do?  He presented this as a symmetrical affliction of both left and right, an annoying and misleading absurdity.

     I sent the letter and it didn’t appear in the paper.  There’s no entitlement to have an item printed but this one was especially on point and it touched upon journalism.  I was curious about why it hadn’t made the cut and had a polite email exchange with the letters editor.  I noted that the tetchiness between politicians and the media had gained a further dimension since the letter’s submission because Greg Gianforte, a GOP congressional candidate, had assaulted Ben Jacobs, a reporter for The Guardian.  It should be noted, parenthetically, that President World Wrestling Entertainment nodded his approval of Mr. Gianforte’s criminous conduct, the Montanan won his race, and now, after a hot minute in Congress, is the state’s governor.

     The editor cited a technicality, that fewer than sixty days had passed since a letter from me had been printed.  The point could be contested, but I was invited to resubmit it after the moratorium, which by any mode of counting had passed.  I did.  It wasn’t printed and, of the stuff on the blog, it has the distinction of double rejection by the same outlet.  The relevant wisdom comes from W. C. Fields:  “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.  Then quit.  There’s no point being a damn fool about it.”  This was a wall against which I didn’t need to beat my head.

Here’s A. Barton Hinkle’s column:

A. Barton Hinkle, “Who’s Telling the Truth in Washington?  Anyone?” The Richmond Times-Dispatch, 21 May 2017, E5 (https://richmond.com/opinion/editorial/a-barton-hinkle-column-whos-telling-the-truth-in-washington-anyone/article_63dfa5c6-376e-5a2e-a78b-3e119bcc4c8d.html).

Here’s the unpublished letter:

     A. Barton Hinkle’s recent opinion piece (“Who’s Telling the Truth in Washington?  Anyone?,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 21, 2017, E1, E5) misleads and lacks the balanced presentation of fact which Mr. Hinkle purports to champion.

     Mr. Hinkle repeats the tired bromide of liberal bias in the “mainstream” media and then rehearses the canonical list of journalistic missteps.  Absent from his excoriation of media is a Fox News network whose viewers have repeatedly been found the least informed, indeed the most misinformed, among consumers of major media outlets and are sometimes better served by no news at all.  He likewise ignores a network of right-wing “think tanks” whose goal is ideological advocacy, not dispassionate regard for truth.

     These omissions are stunning during a week in which Fox News begrudgingly disavowed its “investigative reporting” surrounding the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich, a conspiracy theory dragged from the muck of far-right fever swamps.  This correction perhaps represents progress under Fox’s new regime, since the late Roger Ailes would acknowledge only the most egregious errors.  Is Mr. Hinkle so transfixed by the mote in the “mainstream” media’s eye that the nearby dangling beam vanishes?  The comedian Stephen Colbert’s famous quip has never cut so sharp or true:  “It is a well-known fact that reality has a liberal bias.”

     Mr. Hinkle’s facile cynicism maligns journalists who toil in good faith against deadline to produce “history’s first draft.”  This draft is sometimes messy.  Sources can mislead.  A journalist, like everyone, harbors political views.  A rogue reporter sometimes willfully deceives.  None of this on balance invalidates journalism’s service as bulwark against public malfeasance and corruption.

     Mr. Hinkle seems to offer only a peculiar informational nihilism.  In days when Russian President Putin baldly undermines Americans’ faith in media and institutions and President Trump seemingly admires Putin’s program, Mr. Hinkle’s critique, doubtless unintentionally, reads like useful idiocy.