Jesse Jackson Peterson v. Jesse Jackson

There's Jesse Jackson in this LA Times photo, trying to gladhand the judge hearing a civil lawsuit brought by Jesse Jackson Peterson, the conservative black pastor who's charging JJ, JJ's son and various JJ aids with roughing him up.

The judge wisely demurred. Peterson is not, despite the harrangues and bias any black who criticizes JJ routinely faces.

That harranguing bias is evident in the LAT article, which struggles mightly to paint Peterson with condemnation while avoiding any paint spatter on Jackson.

The reporter, Jessica Garrison, strays from the testimony only to quote others' criticism of Peterson; she does not quote others on Jackson. She says all on her own without attribution to anyone that Peterson has "personalized" the fight with JJ. She says nothing of JJ's daily ad hominem attacks on his own critics. Garrison inserts quotes into Peterson's bio:

His website says he was born on a "plantation" in Alabama and proclaims him this generation's Booker T. Washington.

She doesn't explain the quotes; rather, they just sit their in mute testimony of an allegation that the claim is untrue. And Garrison quotes a JJ fan against Peterson, but not a Peterson fan against JJ.

It's "objectivity" at its worst. Garrison has presented both sides and the newspaper can defend the story. But it comes nowhere close to the higher standard the media refuses to live by: fairness.

And in that regard, they are very close to Brother JJ.