Disinterested Headline of the Day

As you know, the Obama Justice Department last week unleashed "by far the most serious federal attack on online poker to date." Yesterday's headline on the issue from the "disinterested" New York Times? "Foreign Money Fuels Faltering Bid to Push Online Poker."

This allows me to illustrate a point I neglected in yesterday's post about John Judis. I agree with the Judis that the goal and self-mythology of disinterestedness in journalism can be important, and can sometimes lead to a quality of product superior to what comes from those who wear their bias on their sleeve. Critics who fail to see the distinction between bias and agenda, I have written early and often, are hobbling their own literacy. But 1) the presumed quality advantage of the aspirationally impartial is not remotely automatic (The Economist has been better than ostensibly impartial Newsweek for all my adult life), and more importantly, 2) the whole concept of non-ideology is shot through, from head to toe, with ideology.

Much more on that last concept here. Thanks to Ken Basart for the NYT tip.