On Monday we took a collective look at journalism surrounding the Bush Administration and together we found some great content.
In the aftermath of Bush's last State of the Union address, the Environmental News Service wrote an article examining the integrity of the presidents remarks about the environment, pointing out what has historically been a bad e-record. It was our highest rated article and received some interesting comments.
Terry Baiko got right to the heart of it:
"Preaching to the choir. As entertaining as a Bush-bash always is, this presents no window onto how the 'bad guys' justify this terrible act. And without that data, there is no target to shoot at."
While the Environmental News Service article was incredibly informative, it failed to report on the other side of the story. Perhaps because his administration has been so divisive, that is a common failing in journalism about Bush - there is often a lack of reporting on both sides of a story.
Two more highly rated stories were the American Prospects' "The Economic State of the Union," and Slate's "The Man Who Knew Too Little."
As you might guess from the title of the second piece, it was not kind to Bush. The American Prospect's article didn't let Bush off the hook either:
"In last night's State of the Union, Bush danced around the very real economic concerns faced by Americans. Of course, this is nothing new.
The important thing, however, is that our reviewers were looking for more than just mere opinion from the reporters. They praised the authors for providing information (and lots of it) but they also picked up on potential bias and were quick to point out how that weakened the story. That's a complaint that comes from both sides of the political spectrum.
Still - these two stories were both towards the higher end of our ratings, and rightfully so. Not only are articles about Bush consistently getting rated with five stars in the category of "importance," but these specific articles were informative and provided evidence to back up their statements. That's good journalism and we found it together.
Don't forget about our current news hunt which is about the Republican front runner Senator John McCain.
Comments