One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

by Omar El Akkad

How long a society can function under such a journalistic model before deteriorating into something unsalvageable is an open question. But the entire notion of reporter as referee/announcer/scorekeeper, even if it has any merit, requires the game on the field to be played in accordance with some set of rules. It has no capacity to deal with players who kneecap their opponents in the locker room, who have no interest in the rules or even the game itself. Listing one position and then the other and letting the reader make up their own mind fails entirely in the face of plain bad faith. The result is absurdity: articles in which the reporter has had to pretzel their way to a level playing field between the claim that fewer guns would reduce gun violence and the claim that more guns will reduce gun violence.