A Newspaper
A newspaper has every right to align itself politically with one or the other side of partisan debate. And an obligation to cover the news evenhandedly -- that is, without cosmeticologically covering the face of the favored persuasion in order to magnify the mirrored acne of the other.
How do we exercise a fair test for this? We read. If within a month there stands one projectile vomit of vituperative excoriation against one side with nary a single outburst against the other, the reader may fairly determine that the fix is in.
That is my read of the local major daily over the course of the past several months. If it continues, I will do my part to make it clear and make it stick.
It is a curious matter to me: over recent months, and not for the first time, I have reached out to both the cartoonist and writers at the paper when I thought they had done something well. Indeed, I did so in one case because it was astonishing to me that the cartoonist saw anything from my perspective as an alert observer of the passing scene: his persuasion, and it seems his assignments, are nearly always directed at tearing down those who are making considerable efforts to build up what I would favor.
It is this that deserves further attention from each such newspaper: that the differences among elected officials are not mere stonewalling and petty argument. If a newspaper publisher or any of us out here in Real Lifeland would like to test that proposition, ask whether when you vote you are expressing a will to have someone represent your preferences from the vantage of the office sought after. If the answer is "Of course!" then, I assume, you would have that person fight for your interests. If so, then none among us has a grip on reality should we stomp around grimacing when electoral winners are at odds, or when one or both of them employs every parliamentarian tool and house rule at hand to achieve the end effect sought after.
Newspapers have a lousy track record making this phenomenon understood by the public, a lousy track record of not worsening matters by flagrantly beating up on the system in order to sell papers (as mistinct from explaining dynamics).
This is true because newpaperfolk and reporters in particular are notorious for being both overworked against unreasonable deadlines and outright tired -- and lazy, as a result. Thus it becomes easier and faster to do dirtywork than to serve one's calling with the integrity the public reasonably and rightly expect and depend upon.
We "out here" are not stupid and word is spreading. Faster and faster.
That is to say, MediaWatch (Eric Burns, host) has three weeks in a row -- and that is a minimum count -- addressed the impact weblogs and alert bloggers are having on the news industry, both electronic/broadcast and print. What it seems to come down to is this: they are running scared.
They ought to be. As I wrote above, if we out here among the People are not particularly sophisticated about the news business or experienced in communication sklls, we are not stupid. But we are fed up.
How do we exercise a fair test for this? We read. If within a month there stands one projectile vomit of vituperative excoriation against one side with nary a single outburst against the other, the reader may fairly determine that the fix is in.
That is my read of the local major daily over the course of the past several months. If it continues, I will do my part to make it clear and make it stick.
It is a curious matter to me: over recent months, and not for the first time, I have reached out to both the cartoonist and writers at the paper when I thought they had done something well. Indeed, I did so in one case because it was astonishing to me that the cartoonist saw anything from my perspective as an alert observer of the passing scene: his persuasion, and it seems his assignments, are nearly always directed at tearing down those who are making considerable efforts to build up what I would favor.
It is this that deserves further attention from each such newspaper: that the differences among elected officials are not mere stonewalling and petty argument. If a newspaper publisher or any of us out here in Real Lifeland would like to test that proposition, ask whether when you vote you are expressing a will to have someone represent your preferences from the vantage of the office sought after. If the answer is "Of course!" then, I assume, you would have that person fight for your interests. If so, then none among us has a grip on reality should we stomp around grimacing when electoral winners are at odds, or when one or both of them employs every parliamentarian tool and house rule at hand to achieve the end effect sought after.
Newspapers have a lousy track record making this phenomenon understood by the public, a lousy track record of not worsening matters by flagrantly beating up on the system in order to sell papers (as mistinct from explaining dynamics).
This is true because newpaperfolk and reporters in particular are notorious for being both overworked against unreasonable deadlines and outright tired -- and lazy, as a result. Thus it becomes easier and faster to do dirtywork than to serve one's calling with the integrity the public reasonably and rightly expect and depend upon.
We "out here" are not stupid and word is spreading. Faster and faster.
That is to say, MediaWatch (Eric Burns, host) has three weeks in a row -- and that is a minimum count -- addressed the impact weblogs and alert bloggers are having on the news industry, both electronic/broadcast and print. What it seems to come down to is this: they are running scared.
They ought to be. As I wrote above, if we out here among the People are not particularly sophisticated about the news business or experienced in communication sklls, we are not stupid. But we are fed up.
posted by Duct Tape at 10:59 AM
1 Comments:
One point I failed to cover: at the time when the original colonies were developing into some political cohesion (never perfect) the purpose of all broadsheets and newspapers was political, and it was this that the Sons of Liberty, Green Mountain Boys, Founding Fathers, and others depended upon and used so surgically, with such expertise, to win the support of that critical mass of the People that turned the tide from total Tory unity to rebellion-with-purpose-and-design <--- terms never read before this Comment!
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