Yet, despite the depths that journalism has reached in the United States and across the Western world, I still believe in its principles. Indeed, the only ism that I do believe in is journalism, which you might define as the assembling of facts within a framework of common sense and presented in a way that the average person can understand.
But I especially don't like the piling-on "ha-ha" tendencies of today's media. Whenever someone gets demonized and that demonization influences how information is handled, that's where the worst violations of journalistic principles usually occur.
Recently, I've applied that skepticism in evaluating claims about Russian guilt in the 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 from British blogger Eliot Higgins and Australia's "60 Minutes" or in assessing the extravagant accusations about the Ukraine crisis from U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power.
But the same journalistic principles apply in more mundane matters like the NFL's harsh punishment of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in the overblown "Deflategate" case. Many Americans hate Brady and the Patriots, creating an atmosphere in which accusations are readily accepted even if the evidence is weak or manipulated.
While I would argue that my journalism is consistent in this way, I know it tends to offend people who have reached contrary conclusions and don't want to rethink them -- or others who have a stake in the conventional wisdom. Then, I usually get accused of being someone's apologist -- a "Sandinista apologist"; an "Al Gore apologist"; a "Saddam apologist"; a "Putin apologist"; or a "Brady apologist."
But it's really that I just don't like the "big ha-ha!"
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