From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 17:17:30 MDT
Damien S. writes
> A friend [says]:
> ===
> My theory was that the media, if it's doing a good job, reports many
> different things and viewpoints - and many different viewpoints ends
> up being, by strict definition, liberal.
So much for trying to keep our terms straight 8^D
> I can only say that I listen to NPR, and often hear conservative things I
> don't like, but it's accused of being "liberal". And I do hear "liberal"
> things I do like, too. Being a liberal, I accept that the media should cover
> both. ;)
I don't think that this is even attempting to distinguish factual
reporting from op-ed.
> Maybe you could run the argument more along the lines of: there are left-wing
> and right-wing and any number of narrow-viewpoint sources. But a truly good
> source will report a lot of things you don't agree with.
I would vastly prefer that each media outlet through context
make it perfectly clear when it's attempting (however poorly
or well) to objectively report the facts, and when it is
offering up its own partisan explanations of events. While
I deem the latter just as valuable as the former, a clear
line needs always to be drawn between them.
When attempting to portray what's happening, reporters and
media presentations should be in objective mode, mode A.
That is, it should be impossible for all but perhaps the
very most skilled listeners to discern even a trace of bias.
Then, when an analyst, or talk show host, or reporter goes
beyond that---as someone like Rush Limbaugh is perpetually
doing---and offers *explanations* of events from a certain
perspective (call this mode B), it should not be concealed
that this is what he is doing.
Instead, though, it is quite customary for any number of
reporters from Peter Jennings through Walter Cronkite to
pretend to be in mode A while actually coloring the news.
Choice of vocabulary, news selection, facial expressions
and tones of voice convey an ideological partisan bias
in what is ostensibly honest reporting. It makes me
sick, it being somewhere between lying and propaganda.
I have no objection in principle to Bill Press or Bill O'Reilly
explaining the world from their perspective. Depending on who
you agree with, the extra rumination from an ideological point
of view can be quite informative.
But the clear distinction always NEEDS to be made!
> Conservatives don't like different things, liberals do
> -- by definition. So a good media is going to be a
> liberal media.
Above, I thought that this was simply a bad joke. But it
appears that the writer is serious. Of all the hare-brained
ways to characterize liberals and conservatives, this takes
the cake.
Lee
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