So there I was telling you that eveyr self-respecting newspaper needs a beat reporter to cover the news mediums and here comes Maria Elena Salinas to demonstrate why.
In the Albuquerque Journal today, Salinas (a syndicated columnist out of Florida, I believe) tackles a "media" topic, using Dan Rather's departure as the hook. Too bad she makes two big mistakes.
First, she defends good old-fashioned objectivity. I don't so much object to her believing in that fantasy, but rather that she misleads readers.
Secondly, she concludes that Rather's mishandling of the Bush-Texas Air National Guard story meant the story wasn't true. (At least I think that is her conclusion.)
In fact, the saddest part of the Rather episode is that his rotten reporting cast doubt on an old, solid story. Molly Ivins and other Texas-based newspeople reported it years ago.
(Specifically, VIPs helped Bush jump a long waiting list to get into the TANG, thereby reducing the chances he'd be sent to Vietnam.)
Salinas is a generalist whose columns generally make sense to me. She is not an expert on news mediums or journalism. We need more such experts.