There’s a subtle but telling error in the Wall Street Journal’s report on the Arizona Senate primary that was decided this week.
“Rep. Martha McSally won the Republican Senate primary in Arizona on Tuesday,” the article announces, “beating more conservative rivals in another political contest that had evolved into a test of loyalty to President Trump.”
The outlet tweeted that same sentence out to its 16 million followers, and posted it to 6.3 million Facebook fans as well.
Martha McSally wins GOP Senate primary in Arizona, beating more conservative rivals in a race that evolved into a test of loyalty to Trump https://t.co/ETpLkN5gzV
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 29, 2018
The problem, however, is that it’s absurd for a straight news report to casually inform readers that McSally’s opponents, Kelli Ward and Joe Arpaio, are “more conservative” than her. That’s not an objective fact at all. If it’s the reporter’s opinion, it’s something that a lot of conservatives (not just people like myself but also officeholders like Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb.) would argue is just incorrect.
But for the paper to let the descriptor slide as a cold, hard fact is unfair to McSally, her supporters, and the Journal’s many readers. McSally’s record might be less conservative than, say, Sen. Mike Lee’s, R-Utah. But that doesn’t make her objectively less “conservative” than Kelli Ward or Joe Arpaio.
That being said, the error is both more understandable and less acceptable because it comes during a moment of change for conservatism. It’s true there are some on the Right eager to recalibrate the spectrum so that conservatism is assessed by one’s proximity to President Trump, or the intensity of their anti-establishment credentials. If those stakeholders ultimately win out and that scale is adopted, by all means, the Journal is free to call Ward and Arpaio “more conservative” than McSally. That would be a sad day — one I hope never arrives — but it’s certainly not here yet.
But in the meantime, it’s not really the role of news reporters to tell us that the debate has been settled, and that the anti-establishment politics of Ward and Arpaio now count as “more conservative” than McSally’s.
