We have 18 quotes.... Let's pin the article on the weakest one!

An AP writer gets rightly lambasted at Salon for writing a bizarre story based on one viewpoint that doesn't even come from a real person (it came from another media source). This, despite the fact that 18 other quotes gathered for that story don't support the article's premise--in this case, that liberals purportedly have doubts about V.P. nominee Sarah Palin's ability to hold office with five children.

As Raum's own list conclusively demonstrates, he doesn't have even a single example supporting the assertion around which his entire article was built.... What Raum plainly did was just invent an anti-liberal narrative that matched the deeply misleading and manipulative claims being made by the McCain campaign in order to parade around as chivalrous defenders against liberal attacks on the rights of moms to work without restrictions.

If you have 18 quotes taking you in one direction, why not just write the story about those? The answer is that the reporter doesn't put any faith in the veracity or accuracy of those viewpoints. Sometimes this incredulity is merited (cf. Iraq War). Reporters should have latitude to call things by their right name, even when everyone is spinning the reporter in a different direction. The only catch is that you still have to support your argument when you make that call. You can't call a thing by its right name and then justify yourself by saying, "Cuz I said so."

That might work for TV hacks. Not so in the print world.

(Via Bloggasm.)