Is education journalism fair, or “fair”?

Alexander Russo points us to the splashy pitch for supporters of Center for Education Reform’s new media watchdog endeavor, Media Bullpen. Wow. High ratings are given to quotes “portrayed in the correct light” and articles where the “main conclusions are good,” but the 22 pages do not contain mention that this is an organization with a very specific agenda. Bring on fair criticism. But will “the correct light” wind up meaning less about accuracy than about viewpoint?

And are there enough people who care? On a day I just read about another round of Gannett furloughs, I would be thrilled to see resources of what seems like a substantial magnitude (funders are Walton, Gates, Bradley and Gleason) go into creating educational journalism instead of just rating it. Though I get the feeling that this pitch is to like-minded organizations who want to keep track of press on issues like charters. Will those organizations use the ratings to decide whether to allow access to specific journalists? Not that this isn’t done informally anyway.