Recently a network news producer sent an email to a colleage complaining about a speech President Bush was making. In doing so, he broke one of the basic rules in the communications business:

Never send an email that you wouldn’t mind seeing published on the front page of the New York Times.

In the email, published by the Drudge Report,” the producer says:

“…Bush makes me sick. If he uses the ‘mixed messages’ line one more time, I’m going to puke.”

It’s a sentiment no doubt shared by plenty of people, regardless of their political party these days. But the Drudge Report then makes this claim:

“The blunt comments by Green, along with other emails obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT, further reveal the inner workings of the nation’s news outlets.”

Come again?

The inner workings of the nation’s news outlets? From that email and the follow-up messages the producer sent to his staff apologizing for the attention the first email caused?

Wait a second. This is carrying things a bit far.

Just because the members of the media are payed to be objective, that doesn’t mean that they are not allowed to have their own opinion. We all enter into everything with our own prejudices. Journalists are trained to be objective, regardless of any preconceived notions. What’s more important than opinion, always, is fact. All of those who work in the media know that.

Far less than showing the “inner workings” of the national media, this email actually only shows that the journalist in question happens to be human.

Regardless of whether this producer is sick of hearing that one line, that doesn’t automatically make him a John Kerry Democrat. I suspect that there are plenty of Republicans who are sick of hearing what Bush has been saying lately, too; otherwise one might expect his approval rating to more closely resemble the percentage of votes he received in 2004.

No one ever says in journalism school that when you agree to enter the field, you are prohibited from voting, from being a private citizen or from having your own opinion. What we are told, on the contrary, is that you check that opinion at the door when you’re covering a story.

There seems to be neither direct proof offered that the producer’s opinion led him to stand at the helm of a slanted piece, nor any evidence that this producer has distinguished himself with a history of having reporters working under him skewer the president at every turn.

Surely those who like to take every opportunity to blame the media aren’t willing to make the same kind of “leap of faith” that they’d condemn the media for making, right?