Link up your links! The instructions are below the post box.

Is anyone else uncomfortable with a so-called news organization or supposed journalists (and I use both terms loosely) writing or speaking such phrases in their pieces:

“With his long beard and potbelly, August Kreis looks more like a washed up member of ZZ Top than an aspiring revolutionary.”

“The best thing that can be said about August Kreis is that he has helped preside over the decline of the once-feared Aryan Nation, a movement inspired by the racist tenets of Nazi Germany.”

My problem is that they interject this editorial language in pieces about guys like this who are clearly crackpots by most people’s definitions. Then it becomes commonplace for them to do it with “legitimate” subjects. At which point you have journalists and editorial boards determining who gets described as what rather than the actual purpose of news and journalism which is to simply present facts about persons, places, or things and let the reader decide.

I realize any notion of that type of news utopia is long dead if it ever were alive.

You know, I never noticed that before. But now that you mention it, yeah it’s pretty disconcerting.

At the same time, when was there ever truly objective journalism? I’d rather everyone just come up front, announce their biases to the world, and report the news they want to report. My problem with the FOXNewses of the world is simply that they try to tell people that they’re fair and balanced. And they’re not. And the only thing more infuriating than someone spouting FOXNews bullshit at me, is someone spouting FOXNews bullshit at me all while insisting that it’s the only objective news source out there.

Where are the HSTs and Tom Wolfes when you need them?