DC Reporter Fired for Committing Ultimate Kinsleyian Gaffe

Wikipedia (at least at the time of this posting) defines Michael Kinsley’s famously aphorism thusly:

In U.S. politics, a Kinsley gaffe (or “gaffe in Washington”) is an occurrence of someone telling the truth by accident. Typically, it refers to a politician inadvertently saying something publicly that they privately believe is true, but would ordinarily not say publicly because they believe it is politically harmful. The term comes from journalist Michael Kinsley, who said, “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.”

And as the JournoList scandal involving both the Washington Post and a myriad of other Ruling Class publications highlights, the line between politics and journalism is now seemingly blurred forever. And even before the JournoList began, the MSM’s house organ famously published an article in 2007 advising “Climate Change: Get Over Objectivity, Newspapers.”

All of which makes not toeing the party line all the more dangerous for a legacy media journalist. Or as as Robert Bluey writes at Big Journalism, “Thoughtcrime: D.C. Reporter Suspended for Accurate Report on BP’s Donations to Obama:”

WJLA-TV, a Washington, D.C. ABC affiliate, suspended reporter Doug McKelway following his alleged “partisan” comments at a liberal rally on Capitol Hill marking the three-month anniversary of the Gulf oil spill. Video of the broadcast tells a different story:

[youtube MqHT3Iz3yKo]

There’s too much there for me to quote, so definitely read the whole thing.  Bluey writes that “Apparently facts are now ‘partisan.'”

Hannah Arendt wouldn’t have been a bit surprised by this development.

Related: “Old Video Doesn’t Support Charge Suspended McKelway Has Temper Issues.”

(Incidentally, when did it become a negative for on-air personalities to have “temper” issues? Isn’t MSNBC built on this theme?)

Related: “And, of course, there’s a double standard. No doubt if McKelway had been reporting unsubstantiated rumors from anonymous sources about the college antics of a Republican Senate candidate there wouldn’t have been any questions asked.”