8 ms·
Counterpoint, from Ezra Klein of Vox (https://www.vox.com/2020/6/10/21284651/new-york-times-tom-cotton-media-liberal-conservative-black-lives-matter https://www
by scott_s 6y ago
Counterpoint, from Ezra Klein of Vox (https://www.vox.com/2020/6/10/21284651/new-york-times-tom-cotton-media-liberal-conservative-black-lives-matter https://www.vox.com/2020/6/10/21284651/new-york-times-tom-co...):
> There have always been boundaries around acceptable discourse, and the media has always been involved, in a complex and often unacknowledged way, in both enforcing and contesting them. In 1986, the media historian Daniel Hallin argued that journalists treat ideas as belonging to three spheres, each of which is governed by different rules of coverage. There’s the “sphere of consensus,” in which agreement is assumed. There’s the “sphere of deviance,” in which a view is considered universally repugnant, and it need not be entertained. And then, in the middle, is the “sphere of legitimate controversy,” wherein journalists are expected to cover all sides, and op-ed pages to represent all points of view.
- hedora 6y agoAt this point objective truth is buried deep inside the media’s “sphere of deviance” that the media has decided on. The article cites award-winning journalists being fired for running opinion pieces that a 58-80% of the population agree with (but that the fired editor disagrees with!), or for publishing error-free factual pieces. It’s not just the press. When people point out the facts don’t support the conclusion or the math doesn’t add up in a COVID story, there’s a 50-50 chance it gets downvoted to oblivion.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoBut I think Klein is failing to engage with the core issue, that many of the positions now outside the bounds of acceptable discourse in newspapers are held by a majority of Americans and considered reasonable by a supermajority. If newspapers systematically refuse to represent views that most people hold, how can we trust their objectivity?
- ReptileMan 6y agoIt gets even worse. If you ignore the problem by not talking about it and only fringes discuss it - people will go to the fringes to hear what they have to say. And you may get big surprises at the voting booth.
- pm90 6y agoWell not all extremist views are the same. White nationalism and UBI may both be fringe views (maybe the latter isn’t but let’s assume so). I think it’s fine to not mainstream extremist views that call for extermination or discrimination of certain sections of society even if the views have a chance to affect the polls. These fringe views have existed throughout the life of the US and it’s only when they get mainstream attention that they get energized. Every so often they flare up into the mainstream but then get killed by the rottenness of the people that espouse them.
- tlear 6y agoReddit expunged the Donald. Now it is its own cesspool. And it is growing.. November is going to be interesting. Most mainstream pols seem to just be useless now, when any opinion right of the orthodoxy places you somewhere next to Mengele. Fail to take a knee?? Clearly a Nazi. It is nothing new, normal Soviet propaganda.
- scott_s 6y agoThe news is not objective. There is no such thing as a “view from nowhere.” Editors make decisions daily about what even is news, and that is a subjective process.
- remote_phone 6y agoThe opinion pages are not objective. The news should be objective. If they aren’t objective then they should be clear about this otherwise people believe it as objective. That’s the whole point of news.
- scott_s 6y agoIt is not possible for the news to be objective. Even the decision of what is news is a subjective process. If the news appears objective, that only means you share the perspective of the people reporting on and editing it.
- hedora 6y agoThat is a lazy argument. It’s possible for the news to strive to be objective. Back when we had competition between independent news organizations in the US, the news was closer to being objective. Publications that frequently retracted major stories, or ran articles with flawed logic and sloppy conclusions lost market share. These days, there’s basically no competition, and the major news outlets just spew transparent propaganda.
- giardini 6y agoI understand your point: any writer has a point of view and it may ooze out in his choice of words. But a reporter should resist the desire to editorialize and instead emphasize the 5W's: who, what, where, when, why (and how): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws If reporters did so, much contention would disssipate and we'd get more information (news) and less opinion - IMO a good thing.
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- claudeganon 6y agoMost of white American would’ve supported siccing the police and military on the civil rights movement in the 60s. That doesn’t mean that newspapers should’ve advocated they do so. The same holds true here. Ethics are not equivalent to populism.
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- hedora 6y agoThe newspapers in the 60’s didn’t pretend that 100% of the population was behind the civil rights movement. When racist politicians spoke, they got their platform. People could read, and decide for themselves. If an elected official wants to publish a racist diatribe, the press should circulate it as widely as possible. Informed voters make for a stronger democracy. Burying the editorial because it would offend their readers just improves the racist’s chances of being reelected.
- claudeganon 6y agoAh yes, giving bigotry a prominent position and mass circulation is what protects and furthers democracy. History certainly agrees with your sentiment.
- ReptileMan 6y agoSince the US has outlived the russian, german, french, japanese, and british empires, USSR and select other totalitarian states while not stopped being democracy I would say that US society commitment to the principles of marketplace of ideas had indeed protected and furthered the US democracy. All while being a lot more bigoted society.
- claudeganon 6y agoHow did the US “commitment” to democracy and a “marketplace of ideas” play out in Indonesia again? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_1965–66 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_...
- NotSammyHagar 6y agoPlease tell me what the majority of americans support that is unacceptable to talk about? I'm guessing your idea of the super-majority is at best questionably a super-majority.
- BeetleB 6y agoThe article gives several examples.
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- free_rms 6y agoThat sounds like uncritical support for manufacturing consent, to me. I mean it's not like taibbi is speaking up for child molesters. He turned out to be factually right about a lot of this stuff, but it was completely unacceptable to say so.
- goatinaboat 6y agoI mean it's not like taibbi is speaking up for child molesters Unlike, say, the NY Times https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/opinion/pedophilia-a-disorder-not-a-crime.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/opinion/pedophilia-a-diso...
- fwn 6y agoYour characterization of the linked article could not be more wrong. They write about acknowledging the disorder of sexual attraction to prepubescents (=pedophilia) to prevent child abuse. Last sentence: > Acknowledging that pedophiles have a mental disorder, and removing the obstacles to their coming forward and seeking help, is not only the right thing to do, but it would also advance efforts to protect children from harm. They even explicitly recognized your mistake in the article, which is the tendency to conflate the disorder and the crime.
- Covzire 6y agoI think they really undercut their argument with "not a crime" in the title. They may be technically correct for non-offenders, but it's incredibly naive to think such a phrase in the title won't get a lot of scorn and suspicion, even if their hearts are in the right place.
- fwn 6y agoIt's not only "technically correct" but correct in every possible interpretation I can imagine. Do you know an interpretation in which the headline is wrong? A mental disorder is not a crime. Sure the title might be confusing for those who haven't thought about the difference between thought and deed, but that does not mean that readers should just not tell the truth about the articles conclusion. (..as our parents article description was clearly wrong.) I've yet to see an intellectually honest criticism of this article.
- humanrebar 6y agoIt would be hard to argue that a view is universally repugnant when it is espoused by an elected official and there is at least a significant minority of voters polling in support of the view. Given those criteria, we should argue that outright racist or sexist views are both unacceptable and not universally repugnant. I'm still supportive of editors who refuse to publish in those cases. So I'm just quibbling with the word "universally" here. I would rather editorial pages be forthright about where their window of acceptability lies for them. I would especially advocate aversion to doublespeak, especially in journalistic contexts. Propaganda, even well meaning propaganda, is another enterprise.
- ajmurmann 6y agoI wonder how much division in the country plays into this. I keep hearing references to there being at least two countries within the US. Is this maybe the outcome of using the sphere model from the Vox article higher up and applying it only within the "blue country"?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoIt's unlikely. As the article describes, many of the views considered unacceptable are popular even among Democrats.
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- jtbayly 6y agoI mean, I agree, but why be inaccurate with this statement? > significant minority of voters polling in support of the view We know that it’s a majority from the article: > A Morning Consult poll showed 58% of Americans either strongly or somewhat supported the idea of “calling in the U.S. military to supplement city police forces.” Is it because of the same fear that the article is describing in the press?