Description
The term “sanewashing” has been used to describe the tendency of journalists to focus their attention on the coherent and normal (or “sane”) parts of what a politician says, while ignoring jumbled and meandering answers not to mention weird, incoherent ramblings. In doing this, journalists are giving the wider public an inaccurate picture of the persons. They may even be inadvertently covering up more extreme and dangerous ideas and fitness to govern.
Counter-claim
Obviously it’s important that journalists accurately reflect reality in their reporting. But we also don’t want them to just reprint everything a politician says word-for-word. In practice, sanewashing may simply be an inevitable byproduct of journalism itself; of the natural process of filtering out information that is deemed less relevant, and focusing instead on what’s most important. Very often, journalists get those calls right.