Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal today note the obvious in their lead stories — namely, that President Bush’s proposed budget makes no allowance for two rather large elephants in the living room, the continued staggering costs of waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the cost of the proposed Social Security overhaul.
But they go about it in different ways:
The Times‘ Richard W. Stephenson resorts to the timeworn but safe format of he said/she said journalism by framing those observations as if they were partisan allegations put forth by unnamed Democrats:
Democrats denounced the budget as wrongheaded in its priorities and said it masked the fiscal effects of the administration’s policies. Noting that the administration’s budget made no allowance beyond this year for the costs of the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and left out entirely the costs of Mr. Bush’s proposal for overhauling Social Security, they said his proposals were not credible.
Whereas Journal reporters John D. McKinnon, Jackie Calmes and Greg Ip just flat-out declare the omissions. In both the main story (McKinnon and Calmes; subscription required) and in a sidebar (Ip; free), the reporters rely on their own “reportorial authority” (to use the phrase of our colleague Todd Gitlin) to point out the omission — and thus dispense with the he said/she said cop-out.
Here’s McKinnon and Calmes:
The president faced criticism from across the political spectrum as soon as the fat cream-and-blue budget books were released yesterday morning. Agencies and interest groups complained he went too far, and deficit hawks in both parties complained he didn’t go far enough or targeted too narrow a slice of the federal spending pie. The document failed to account for supplemental Iraq war spending or costs associated with the administration’s proposed Social Security overhaul; in projecting shrinking deficits beyond 2006, it skimped on details of how that would be accomplished.
The tendency of the Journal to encourage its reporters to exercise a degree of conclusiveness that might make a Times editor blanch has been noted approvingly by Slate‘s Jack Shafer and wistfully by the Times’ own public editor, Dan Okrent.
At first this might seem a subtle difference — but in the long run, the ramifications aren’t subtle for the reader. Over time, it means you’re likely to learn from the Times only what fits in the oppositional model of he said/she said reporting. From the Journal, however, you’re more likely to be served assertive conclusions drawn by seasoned reporters steeped in their subject and confident in their own expertise.
As for us, we’ll order from Column B every time.
–Steve Lovelady
Steve Lovelady was editor of CJR Daily.