Bob Somerby flags some absurd mind-reading by Time's Joe Klein, who claims to know that Hillary Clinton's two innocuous references to RFK's 1968 assassination mean "that Obama's vulnerability to racist nutjobs has been in her mind for months now":
I take all of Karen’s points below—and the fact that Hillary Clinton mentioned Bobby Kennedy's assassination in conversation with Rick Stengel in March shows that Obama's vulnerability to racist nutjobs has been in her mind for months now—but still, I have a certain amount of sympathy for her. The woman is clearly exhausted.
Even elite journalists like Klein (who probably gets paid $5/word for his Time columns) do not understand logic or epistemology. They do understand what sells, however -- cartoon-style psychodramas that can only be constructed by pretending to know the innermost thoughts of the candidates.
PS If you go to Klein's house, he'll read your palm too.
The "whiggism" fallacy is so common in journalistic meta-accounts of events (like Klein's) that I don't think the journalists know they are undulging in it. It seems to function as a perfectly acceptable trope for the entire profession.
Other than strictly factual reporting (which does happen), I wonder if virtually all journalistic commentary (like Klein's) isn't defined by epistemological fallacies like whiggism.
Mightn't it be one of the things that distinguishes journalism from well written history?
Posted by: Otey2 | May 29, 2008 at 10:00 AM