Newsroom Decision-Making 101

Any reporter knows that being "fair" is not the same thing as being objective. Contrary to popular phraseology, there is no such thing as "objective" journalism. News stories are written by humans, who make choices about which subjects to showcase and which quotes to use -- choices, therefore, that kill so-called objectivity.

But you can be fair.

Which brings me to today's Washington Post. A story there about soaring unemployment rates among young black men raises many important and troubling points: namely that joblessness within this population -- a stunning 34.5 percent -- has skyrocketed to levels not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. That is a disaster and bodes ill for the future, even after we pull out of this recession.

Yet you can't help wondering at the newspaper's decision to use a 24-year-old convicted drug dealer as the leading illustration of these dismal facts -- especially when they also interviewed a highly educated, young black woman.

Apparently, Delonta Spriggs felt he had to deal drugs to support his 3-year-old daughter after work in the construction industry didn't pan out. But if you're trying to focus readers' attention on a complex problem, don't you undercut the point by attaching it to a less-than-sympathetic -- perhaps less-than-credible source?

Discuss....