Opportunistic Value Judgements

by nukegingrich | November 9, 2006 at 08:42 pm

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I cached this page, because it contained one of the more interesting tracks that I've read in Guardian (UK) for quite some time:

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Wednesday November 8 2006.

An editing error in the report below introduced a value judgment
on the Nicaraguan presidential election with the phrase, "From a social
progressive, he [Daniel Ortega] has changed into an ego-driven
opportunist ": when the original article made it clear that this was
the opinion of disillusioned Sandinistas.

Just from reading the correction, it's difficult for me to discern whether the value judgment in question was considered to be a slight against the communists, or a slight against ego-driven opportunists.

But, now that we know that Guardian considers value judgments to be non-grata, I will be watching for future articles which use this method of characterizaton in covering Israel, for example. And, I would hope that they would be as willing to correct those errors as quickly as they did for Ortega.

Although he is opposed by 60% of the Nicaraugan people, Guardian
sees Ortegaâs apparent electoral victory with about 38% of the vote, as
a "stinging rebuke to George W. Bush," a characterization which to this
writer, appears to be a value judgment.