Bias warriors on the right as well as the left look for any opening — however small — to smash the media in the face for even the slightest appearance of partisanship. And sometimes, much to our chagrin, journalists make the warriors’ job just a little too easy.
Today’s case in point is a story that crossed the AP wire early this afternoon. In a piece about presidential advisor Karl Rove’s fourth round of testimony in front of a grand jury concerning his role in the Valerie Plame leak case, the AP seems to stack the deck a bit in the second paragraph, when it writes, “It was likely Rove’s final chance to convince grand jurors he did nothing criminal in the leak case.”
One could just as easily write, “It was likely the jurors’ final chance to uncover anything criminal in Rove’s behavior.”
Or, “It was clear frustrated grand jurors felt Rove’s three previous appearances hadn’t yielded up useful information.”
We’ll grant that, in general, if a grand jury calls you in four separate times, things probably don’t bode well. But, as of yet, we haven’t seen anything to suggest that Rove has to “convince” grand jurors of his innocence. The fact is, we don’t even know what they’ve been asking him about. What’s more, no one has been indicted yet, and no criminal trial convened. So it’s a little hasty to assume, as the AP seems to, that Rove was brought in to make a last-ditch plea.
Listen carefully. You can almost hear legions of right-wing bloggers furiously banging away at their keyboards, sure they’ve discovered yet another example of a sloppy press leaping to unwarranted conclusions.
And this time, they’re right.
–Paul McLeary
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.