Mark Halperin, who has faithfully promoted right wing talking points and unsubstantiated Drudge reports as news as political director of ABC News, is changing jobs. Editor and Publisher reports that he is moving from political director to analyst in order to have more time for writing.
I see this as sort of a lateral move for Halperin, but a more honest move. Instead of promoting right wing ideas and his opinions while pretending to be in news, Halperin will be operating more openly as an analyst. Hopefully it will be made clear to viewers that he is analyzing from his right wing perspective such as George Will does and he is not promoted as an objective political analyst. More importantly, I hope that his replacement, David Chalian, performs his job with more objectivity and journalistic integrity than we have seen from Halperin.
I also wish Halperin luck in this new phase of his career, as long as he is honest and open about his conservative bias as he provides his opinions. While I have many disagreements, such as with his comparison of Matt Drudge to Walter Cronkite, I did find his recent book, The Way to Win, to be one of the better conservative political books I have read in a long time. At least Halperin avoids the excesses seen by conservative pundits like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh when giving the conservative viewpoint on current politics.
