http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/6/13/231126/424
[quote]Calling Lies Lies
By Joshua Micah Marshall
Section: Media
Earlier today over at TPM, I flagged a piece that ran in Sunday's Post and noted it as an example of the inability, within the current norms of newspaper journalism, to call lies 'lies'.

The Post authors used the phrase 'misleading at best' to characterize a claim that really amounted to a deliberate misstatement of fact.

In response I received this note from a staff writer at a well-known regional daily in the US ...


This is a response to your criticism of journalists who don't call a lie a lie. As a journalist myself, I'm sensitive to this. I agree we can do better and not offer false equivalence, like saying there's a scientific debate over evolution and intelligent design when there is no scientific debate, only a political one. During the recent presidential campaign, reporters could have perhaps been more forceful in their language dealing with campaign statements and their factuality. But I think you're asking too much of reporters to label something as lies when its just misleading, even if highly so. In this case, George Bush's statement is factually defensible, but meant to give a false impression. It appears that terrorism investigations have led to identifying 400 suspects, but that in the final analysis about half of the suspects aren't suspected of anything related to terrorism, and only one in 10 were convicted of terrorism activities. It's a sin of omission, more than commission. Bush did what politicians have done for years and phrased something in a factual, but highly misleading way. Newspapers routinely run ads that are of a similar nature because they are factually defensible, if only barely. The reporter could have perhaps tried to uncover information that Bush knew that his statement wasn't the whole truth. Then you could say he was intentially misleading the public. Calling such things lies is the job of pundits, editorialists and polemists such as yourself, not reporters.
On the specific word 'lie', I think the writer may have a point. It's a word deeply tied to motive.

But I think journalists shortchange the public, fail in their job, when they don't make much more clear than they now normally do when public officials are telling them things that are not only false but are knowingly false and conveyed in a way that is intended to deceive.

I'm curious to hear your opinion.
[/quote]

I would call it bullshit, or bullshitting.
http://www.slate.com/id/2114268