Last week, a U.S.C. journalism professor named Marc Cooper wrote on Facebook that New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet had demonstrated “absolute cowardice” by refusing to publish any Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicting Mohammad in his paper. In response, Baquet called Cooper an “asshole.” We can disagree on whether or not Cooper is an asshole. But let’s agree on this: If Dean Baquet thinks someone is an asshole, he should say so in public.

We highlight this mundane point because today the journalism experts at Florida’s Poynter Institute weighed in on Baquet’s retort in an essay titled: “Why editors shouldn’t call readers a**holes.”

“It’s possible,” writes media ethicist Kelly McBride, “that those who recognize how hard it is to create great journalism every single day of the year were animated by the idea of the polite and prestigious editor of the country’s biggest newspaper swinging back in response to a cheap shot.”

But, McBride adds:

I wish he wouldn’t have. ...

The name-calling diverted our attention. I bet it felt good in the moment. And for others, perhaps it provided a vicarious moment of satisfaction in the face of smug self-righteousness. But in the long run, calling Cooper an asshole harms the very condition that Baquet and the rest of journalism strives to create: an informed and engaged citizenry.

“Name-calling starts,” McBride concludes, “when reasonable listening stops.”

This a fundamental misunderstanding of Baquet’s comment. He used the word asshole to describe a tenured professor of journalism—who by definition straddles two worlds full of fucking assholes (hello). Reporters are assholes. Editors are assholes. Professors are assholes.

It is statistically impossible for a journalism professor not to be an asshole. Not calling Cooper an asshole, regardless of the merits of his argument or the tone of his post, would have left a crucial fact unreported. The citizenry would have been left uninformed. The polity would have remained unengaged.

McBride, of all people, should realize this. It’s not “name-calling” to point out a pertinent fact.

Anyway: Stay salty, Dean. You motherfucking asshole.

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