Objectivity? Schmogjectivity!

Today's Washington Post article by Jo Becker on U.S. District Court Susan J. Dlott's ruling yesterday that effectively stopped GOP efforts to challenge voter eligibility in Ohio is a textbook study in liberal media bias. Ojectivity requires only balance, not fairness, but Becker's story didn't even get to objectivity. Here's an objective analysis:

• Becker appropriately lets the winner have first say, giving Dem strategist David Sullivan the opportunity to draw some blood: "The Republican assault on tens of thousands of Ohio voters was an unprecedented effort to intimidate voters, especially minorities, but it has backfired."
  
  But in paragraph four, no such courtesy is given the GOP; instead, there's only a dry paraphrase, and a rather cold and threatening one at that: Mark Weaver, a lawyer for the Ohio Republican Party, said yesterday's ruling does not prevent the party from going forward with plans to place 3,400 monitors in polling places, particularly in heavily Democratic urban areas.
  
  
• Nowhere in the 20-paragraph story does Becker explain the basis for the GOP challenge. You learn in Journalism 101 to do that, but you apparently learn in Washington Post 101 to give no quarter.
  
  
• Instead of explaining the nature of the GOP challenge in Ohio, Becker lays out a litany of GOP challenges in other states:
  
  In Nevada, another battleground, Clark County election officials rejected an attempt this month by the former executive director of that state's GOP to challenge 17,000 voters in the Las Vegas area.
  
  In Florida, the GOP has filed plans to place poll watchers at 5,000 polling places, spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher said.
  
  In Denver, election officials said the Republican Party told them it plans to have 350 poll watchers to challenge voters there. "This is a very organized, very intense effort," said Alan McBeth of the Denver Election Commission. "If it becomes abusive, we may have to step in and say this is out of hand."
  
  Any copy about Dem activities you ask? Not a word, not a single, solitary word.
  
  
• Then there's this openly biased sequence masquerading as objectivity:
  
  Tom Josefiak, the Bush campaign's general counsel, said in a recent interview that challenges would be conducted in a non-intimidating manner that would not disrupt voting.
  Democrats, however, argue that the real aim of the challenge program is to keep voters likely to support Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), particularly minorities, from casting ballots.
  Bob Bauer, a lawyer for the Democratic National Committee, said Democrats will also have large numbers of poll watchers. But, he said, "our watchers will be there to help voters, not to hinder them, to answer their questions, not to question them."
  
  Again, the quote goes to the Dem, the ominous paraphrase to the Republican. Two paragraphs of Dem response and allegation to one paragraph of negatively paraphrased, question-raising GOP-speak.
  
  
• And finally, what exercise in Kerry-supporting "objective" journalism would be complete without laying down the race card?
  
  In Florida, Republican poll watchers will be disproportionately concentrated in minority precincts, according to a Democratic Party analysis of census data and GOP plans filed in five counties. In Miami-Dade, 59 percent of predominately black precincts will have at least one GOP poll watcher, compared with 37 percent of white precincts.
  
  Although Fletcher did not dispute those numbers, she said that the party will not single out black neighborhoods, but rather heavily Democratic ones. "Those are the places most likely for the Democrats . . . to try to steal the election," she said.
  
  Obviously, GOP watchers will watch heavily DEM districts, and just as obviously, many of those districts will be minority districts. To cloak it as a race issue is so outrageous it begs the question: Is it true that the Democrats are disproportionately concentrating their efforts in white precincts? Of course they are.
  
  
• Nowhere in the article, nowhere, is there one mention of the many, very real DEM efforts to challenge, cheat, and intimidate and manipulate voters in this election, although there's plenty to report on that subject.