From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 19:28:52 MDT
On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 04:17:30PM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
> > 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.
>
> > 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.
I actually I grew up with this ambiguity. The terms can be used to label
particular positions on the spectrum, or the more general attitudes "open to
change" and resistant to change. WordNet gives
liberal
adj 1: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad
political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a
liberal newspaper"; "tolerant of his opponent's
opinions" [syn: {broad}, {tolerant}]
conservative
adj 1: resistant to change [ant: {liberal}]
Also
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Conservative \Con*serv"a*tive\, n.
1. One who, or that which, preserves from ruin, injury,
innovation,
And see Communists in the Soviet Union being "conservative", vs. "liberal"
free market reformers. My friend's use isn't illegitimate, in my view; the
ambiguity is in the language. Note she could view the Nation -- a left wing
magazine -- as an illiberal news source.
Now, whether she's right about the media being considered liberal because they
carry viewpoints conservatives don't like, vs. being considered liberal
because they don't carry conservative views, is another question.
I will note again that lefties don't think mass media is leftie.
-xx- Damien X-)
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