The false rush to cry 'balance'
By: Michael Kinsley
January 11, 2011 04:41 AM EST
snip
"People who work in the news media get used to the nastiness. The other day, exercising my First Amendment right to procrastinate by searching the Web for my name — a widely practiced secret vice of writers —
I came across an anonymous posting on a website that I’d never heard of, asking, “Is Kinsley Dead Yet?” I thought of writing back, “Not yet. Sorry,” but lost my nerve. What if this guy, or someone else, decides to rectify that situation? I was a bit more unnerved a few years ago
when Bill O’Reilly, who didn’t like an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, where I then worked, declared: “They’ll never get it,” referring to his gripe, whatever it was, “until they grab Michael Kinsley out of his little house and they cut his head off. And maybe when the blade sinks in, he’ll go, ‘Perhaps O’Reilly was right.’” O’Reilly has millions of followers — just ask him. Who could know whether one might decide to give him a present?"
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=71A34884-BF1F-7D6B-1F905C7B7324E41C