This blog post, about Joe Biden jokingly calling a shop owner a smartass, illustrates several of the issues of objectivity that Freedman alludes to, and comments directly on whether the press should cover stories like this. I agree with the author that the Biden incident is really more of a non-story, but the press will jump on it--not necessarily because they're biased against Biden, but because it's the sort of punchy, gossipy story that easily gets readers' attention.
A problem I have with this article is that it's obviously written as commentary/editorial, but it's not distinguished very well from Salon's news coverage. I expect this to become a bigger problem as newspapers switch to online-only content. Many newspapers host blogs on their websites, which have a similar function to columns. The New York Times does a lot to ensure that its blogs look different from its news coverage, but Salon isn't as good about this. Also, it can be hard to draw a line between a blog and a newspaper--much of Salon's coverage is more opinionated and casual than that of print newspapers, but it's generally a pretty reliable and respected publication. On the other hand, one of my favorite literary blogs, The Millions, started out as one person's blog, but is now designed and written like more like a magazine. The line between the two is not only blurry, but it seems to move over time.
Seems to me that Salon is all about editorialism and tongue-and-cheek-isms. I think the point of this story IS actually that it's not a story ... just an ordinary, friendly conversation that should not be made into a mountain, quoted out of context, or over-analyzed. Just a sound blip that shows Biden is a regular Joe ... and the writer treats it as such.
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