Media Balance

WHEN MEDIA AIMS FOR BALANCE, SOME VIEWS AND FACTS GET LOST
[SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Dante Chinni, Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism]
[Commentary] Balance is one of those issues that seems simple on the surface, but gets more complicated as you look at it more deeply. As a concept, it is often trumpeted by outlets that profess to be objective. The problem, of course, is that balance doesn't necessarily lead to getting the story right. In searching for an easy way to explain the news in a limited space, journalists too often reduce issues to their most rudimentary forms. This is true on debates ranging from gay marriage (a for-or-against argument with little talk of what rights gays should have) to when troops in Iraq should come home (stay or "cut and run" even though both sides are talking about when reductions should occur) and everything in between. The extreme points of view on those issues may be actual positions, but so are the many nuanced views that live between them and get less coverage. In other words, despite its prominent place in many media debates, "balance," as it is usually understood, is often not particularly useful in journalism. All opinions and points of view aren't equal when one digs into the facts and "both sides" leaves a lot of sides out.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0711/p09s01-codc.html