Paul Kane thinks, or pretends to think, that he gets criticized for offering too much “balance and context”:

PelosiPalooza!: Agreed on the “gate” issue, Paul. On another chat yesterday, a Post chatter asked what types of stories we feel should be reported on that aren't. Tangential to that, I'd just like to add that whatever your reporting on (and love your work, by the way), what I think most of us want is not “fair and balanced” or “opposing viewpoints”. Just give us the facts. In context. Easy as that. Thanks!

Paul Kane: Hmmm, I still think I like LollaPelosi better. We try for balance and context, it's a goal I personally shoot for; I know this upsets people, especially at Media Matters, who think there's no need for balance because they already know what we all should know. So we should only present 1 side, their side, of the argument.

I just can't assume to know which side is right, so I do try to provide both sides of the argument.

That's pretty much the opposite of the truth.

Here, for example, Media Matters criticized Kane for simply reporting Olympia Snowe's criticism of the potential use of budget reconciliation to pass health care legislation without noting that Snowe had previously supported the use of reconciliation to pass President Bush's tax cuts.*

Kane responded to that criticism by writing “We reported what Olympia Snowe said. That's what she said. That's what Republicans are saying. I really don't know what you want of us,” thus nicely illustrating the difference between stenography and journalism.

See, Kane doesn't really get criticized for trying for “balance and context.” He gets criticized for leaving context out, and for suggesting that context isn't necessary.

Even in his post today, Kane suggests that his job is just to provide “both sides of the argument,” because he can't know which side is right. Well, sometimes he can. Granted, it'll take a little more work than simply typing up what the two sides say, but he can do some research and find out if one side is saying something that is false, or that is undermined by its previous stance.

For example, if Paul Kane hears that Hillary Clinton falsely claimed to have always been a Yankees fan, Kane could spend half a minute looking through his own newspaper's archives to find out if is true before passing the lie on. But that isn't Paul Kane's style; he thinks his job is just to repeat the lie as though it were true.

That's the kind of thing that Paul Kane gets criticized for: making false claims and not understanding that it isn't enough to simply type up Olympia Snowe's comments without including the relevant context.

Then there's this, in which Kane asserted that “the real fiscal answer is ... slashing Medicare benefits,” which isn't exactly a balanced presentation of “both sides of the argument.”

For Kane to now claim that he's being criticized for providing “balance and context” and “both sides of the argument” is nothing short of hilarious. That's exactly what he has been criticized for failing to do.

* If Kane still doesn't understand the problem with reporting GOP complaints about reconcilation without noting their previous use of it, his colleagues do. Just days after Media Matters pointed out the omission, another Washington Post article included the relevant information.