I Love to Say "I Told You So"

In case you thought my previous post about the sorry state of journalism was overblown, I offer some evidence.

There's a trope in political commentary that I don't know of an established term for. I call the "F.E.B.",  since I can't otherwise say the phrase out loud without offending people. Let me explain that the acronym is in the format of adjective-adjective-noun and the middle word is "Evil."

When this trope is deployed, Editorialist A describes a situation his Political Opponent Z is bringing about. He lists all of the bad things that will happen because of Z's actions. Then he concludes that doing this is A Very Bad Thing. Note what he does not do: he doesn't do is address the reason Z wants to do this, or the potential good effects of the action. The implication is that Z is just an evil mustache twirler who likes seeing orphans starving in the streets while puppies are thrown alive into furnaces to provide cheap energy. I'm not saying A needs to make all of Z's arguments for him. But he ought to at least acknowledge that Z has a reason for what he does, and maybe try to address why those reasons are wrong, or the good effects are outweighed by the bad.

This rant is brought on today by a report I heard on NPR over my lunch break. They were reporting on Margaret Thatcher's legacy. The particular story I heard was about the miners' strikes of the 1980's. I admit I knew next to nothing about the strikes when the story came on. Thanks to their reporting, I didn't know any more once it ended.

I did learn that the guest being interviewed disapproved of Thatcher's handling of the strikes, which he characterized as "going to war against her own people" (as though she were Saddam Hussein gassing the Kurds). What were the overriding issues? What was the strike about? Why did Thatcher's government want to end the strike? What were the government's tactics? In what ways did it resemble a war? How could it have been resolved differently? Is the mining industry in decline today because of what happened? Are the connections correlated but not causal? Are we reversing cause and effect? I don't know any of those answers.* But my point is I didn't learn them from the source whose very purpose is allegedly to educate listeners on those issues.

I understand that politicians will deploy the F.E.B. strategy. They want to make their opponent appear unelectable. But it's unacceptable for a journalist to broadcast an F.E.B. attack, or allow it to stand unchallenged. In fact, the host of the show thanked the reporter for his contribution and concluded that there were "mixed feelings on Margaret Thatcher's death." Not her "legacy", not her "influence on modern politics"… on her death. Because she is a F.E.B. and she deserves no better.

* Remember: No Research Zone.