I don't consider myself a creationist. I don't have any interest in sharing my personal views on how the canyon was carved, mostly because I've spent almost no time pondering my personal views -- it takes all my energy as a reporter and writer to understand and explain my subjects' views fairly and thoroughly.
One of the complaints journalists have with bloggers is that they don't do "original reporting." But, now we see that "original reporting" has, for some journalists, become nothing more than finding people who have opinions on stuff and telling readers what those opinions are. And, amazingly, according to Wilgoren, she expends no effort in contemplating the credibility of those views. Apparently her editors are happy with this.
Jeebus. As PZ Myers writes:
Who needs facts, ideas, and research? The reporter's brain is like an empty sponge, free of content, which just soaks up everyone's opinions indiscriminately and without judgement, and is then wrung out over the pages of the newspaper. Actually thinking and evaluating those opinions in the light of evidence isn't possible with a sponge for a brain.
When did journalism come to this deplorable state?
When did the NY Times decide that porosity, permeability, and flocculence were important job qualifications?
I think this is what decades of redefining objective journalism as "journalism free of any perception of bias" has done to us. Reporters have decided their job is to simply have no opinions on anything, or at least pretend to. They pretend to take themselves out of it entirely. I don't think they really have no opinions, but they nonetheless feel the need to do their jobs in such a way as to pretend this is the case. Of course, whenever there's beltway "conventional wisdom" on a subject they feel free to violate this even when that conventional wisdom is bollocks.
Lovely.