Part of our job is to capture what people really mean, not catch them in a gotcha misstatement or an inelegant remark.
Nuance matters.
To ensure that we don’t leave truth on the cutting room floor, please look for the larger meaning and include that context in your stories.
I also intend to have a McClatchy journalist supplement our coverage with occasional stories about nuance. Stay tuned for an announcement on that front.
Consider the 47 percent comment by Romney. Did he really mean that he didn’t care about nearly half the country? That’s what a lot of what was written said. And it’s a lot of what the anti-Republican crowd told us was undeniably true.
And of course, he didn’t mean it the way at all.
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax…[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
Afterwords
To cross me up, Jim also faults McClatchy’s coverage of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:
I found that Ahmadinejad’s comments about Israel, while controversial, were not simply provocative and the rankings of a crazy man. When he said Israel was irrelevant and of no concern to him, he was talking as an Iranian, proud of his nation’s 7,000 year history, and certain that his culture would endure long after Israel’s vanished. Is he wrong? I hope so. But was it understandable? I think it was. He did some other things too. He began his press conference Monday and his speech to the UN on Wednesday with a prayer. He quoted poetry.
Is this the mark of an evil man? Is he a manipulator?
I fear that what the West knows of Ahmadinejad is a caricature. And armed with such a vision, dialogue between us is impossible.
Postscript
Over at Politico, here’s how Dylan Byers headlines his post on Jim’s memo: “McClatchy D.C. chief defends Ahmadinejad.” Well, it’s true: No nuance goes unrewarded.
