There has been plenty of debate recently about whether false equivalence exists, what it means, and what obligations the MSM have to avoid it. It does exist, and here are my thoughts about it:
1. It is mostly a TV news phenomenon. To illustrate it, imagine what happens on a typical day: there will be one story in which a reporter shakes his or her head with wonder about some new outrageous statement from Trump which indicates that he plans to violate the Constitution, or blow up the world, or whatever; and then a second, equally long story in which another reporter comments on Clinton’s e-mail for the five hundredth time and makes note of her trust issues. To the casual observer, and most are, this sends the message that the two candidates have essentially the same liabilities, which isn’t true.
2. In print, it is just bad journalism. The side-by-side problem doesn’t really exist in print; here, the issue is whether the publication in question feels compelled to identify nonexistent scandals, to draw unwarranted inferences, or to blow facts out of proportion simply because it has previously run similar stories about the other candidate. The bogus stories about the Clinton Foundation would meet this description.
3. Gentility isn’t the issue. Personally, I don’t care if the NYT uses the word “lie” to describe Trump’s false statements as long as the scope and nature of the untruth is exposed in the article in question.