I don’t think anyone outside the mainstream media thinks it lacks an ideology. I’m not talking about the Left or Right pointing out a bias toward the opposition. I’m talking about the mainstream media’s view of itself and its mission. Once upon a time the mission was to report facts in a serious and unbias fashion. Over time, that mission has drifted into a parody of itself.
Where the media once focused on reporting on facts, it is likely to report on opinions. Rather than report about the facts of global warming, the mainstream media offers an assertion from scientists countered by someone on the fringe. The he-said/she-said version of reporting takes a lot less work and satifsies media’s belief in its own unbiasness. The problem is that this version of reporting often results in a false equivalency.
Pundits are only part of news production, but a number of them also double as reporters. What they say gives us insight into how they think. AmericaBlog has a great example of the neurotic need of two NBC newsies to falsely equate Democrats and Republicans. In an era when the GOP is so freakin’ crazy that it beggars the imagination, such equivalencies are particularly galling and ridiculous. Here are Chuck Todd and David Gregory discussing Rick Perry as Obama’s opponent in 2012:
Chuck Todd: Perry-Obama would be a picture of sharp contrasts.
David Gregory: You know, Perry talked about potentially seceding from the union. You think that’s extreme. Well people on the other side think that introducing health care reform for the whole country is akin to European Socialism.
WTF? Pushing secession somehow equals national health care? No. Not even close. But, that’s the way our elite pundits think. They create an equivalency between Democrats and Republicans, as if the right wing’s extremism is somehow, well, normal. It’s not. Yet, Gregory legitimized Perry’s secession talk.
So, 2012 could become a battle between secession and health care. And, the traditional media and pundits will consider that a legitimate debate.
Eric Alterman’s explanation for this was that the Right has spent enough time and energy badgering the Press for not supporting its theses that the Press has now assumed a defensive posture. He-said/she-said protects them from demented angry phone calls, boycott threats and the like.
It’s easy to forget that the Right’s support of the Iraq War was not above accusing liberal opponents of treason. (See, for example, Coulter’s book of the same name.) That harsh partisanship was directed at the Press too.
protect themselves from some of these attacks by getting in the habit of just reporting the news, and not feeling obligated, or owed the right, to analyze everything and tell us how to think. How many times have you heard a politician or newsmaker make a statement, followed by an even longer talk by someone who knows no more than the rest of us presuming to tell us what it means? Just report the news. I can draw my own conclusions.
To use the metaphor from the title of the diary it sounds like your way would be politician x makes statement that world is flat with no commentary, while politician y insists that its round. Too many low information voters wouldn’t know whom to believe (OK I assume they would on the issue of the planet’s shape, but that’s obviously a stand-in for more complex issues.). We don’t need just he-said, she-said, nor faux neutrality suggesting both sides have a point. We need real factchecking that seems preciously rare these days.
I don’t think the media and analysts, such as they are, have been doing us any favors. What we seem to get is pop analysis, and regurgitation of what the newsmaker/politician has said, with little thought as to what they actually meant or the comparisons between differing positions. Your last sentence gets to the real point of my gripe, and I don’t feel I have any news source where I can get information I need, presented in a mature, sober manner. What passes for analysis today, doesn’t do it.
How does KBusch’s comment rate a thumbs down?
I think that just sucks.
This is a good example of why the ratings need to be personally-identifiable. When I get a drive-by down-rate from a known troll, it’s easy to ignore (I often view them as an affirmation). When an egregiously un-deserved down-rate is personally-identifiable, it helps identify the down-rater as a troll.
I’m glad the editors are working on this, and look forward to its roll-out.
…the way a 3 (worthless) was on Soapblox. I just use the thumbs as a way of saying agree/disagree. I’ve given thumbs down to comments that I would not have given 3s to simply to show I disagree. I also don’t take thumbs down given to me as personally as I took 3s.
I use thumbs down only when someone is blatantly rude or unconstructive. When I disagree, I comment or not.
What Liberal Media? is one of my favorite political books! A great mix of scholarship and politics.
The ultimate blame for what’s wrong with this country lands on movement conservatism.