Media watchdog punditry is awful, pointless, and boring, and you should stop paying attention to it.
A thread:
A thread:
"But the media!"
"The media" is not a monolith: it is a vast, sprawling thing with hundreds of thousands of people and organizations. You can always find a nutcase who says or writes crazy things. Stop overgeneralizing from the nutcases ("nutpicking" as @DavidAFrench says).
"The media" is not a monolith: it is a vast, sprawling thing with hundreds of thousands of people and organizations. You can always find a nutcase who says or writes crazy things. Stop overgeneralizing from the nutcases ("nutpicking" as @DavidAFrench says).
"But the bias!"
Duh. It's been that way literally forever. Learn how to filter it out in your own media consumption and get over it. Working up angst about how this or that org isn't covering something the way you'd like is petulant.
Duh. It's been that way literally forever. Learn how to filter it out in your own media consumption and get over it. Working up angst about how this or that org isn't covering something the way you'd like is petulant.
"But the media covered this thing wrong!"
"The media" is rarely worse than the thing they're covering. We'd all be better off if we paid closer attention to the thing than to how the media is covering the thing.
"The media" is rarely worse than the thing they're covering. We'd all be better off if we paid closer attention to the thing than to how the media is covering the thing.
Media watchdogging is often an exercise in skewed perspective, majoring in the minors, missing forests for trees, getting priorities wrong, misjudging what the most important thing of the moment is.
"But the liberals!"
So, sure, conservatives and religious traditionalists are underrepresented at, say, the NYT and CNN.
Do you think Fox or the WSJ are nationally representative of all groups and beliefs?
See point above about the vast, diverse thing "the media" is.
So, sure, conservatives and religious traditionalists are underrepresented at, say, the NYT and CNN.
Do you think Fox or the WSJ are nationally representative of all groups and beliefs?
See point above about the vast, diverse thing "the media" is.
My problem with "the media" is more about framing, not bias. Journalists have to fit facts into narrative. The narrative they choose is often a simplistic, ahistorical, juvenile morality play that glamorizes, self-expression, liberation, coming-of-age, underdog victories, etc.
These fabricated narratives aren't facts, and the "news" embedded in them isn't an objective conveyance of "stuff that happened," but a story told with a purpose--yes, one that often has a partisan slant to it.
But you know what? It isn't the end of the world.
But you know what? It isn't the end of the world.
The conservative effort to counter the "liberal media" by creating a conservative media industry did not create a more honest and less partisan media, it just destroyed the ideal of an objective media and a publicly shared notion of truth altogether.
I read the @washingtonpost and @TheAtlantic. I know they lean left. I accept it. I don't loose my mind over it. I read @TheWeek, which is excellent for balance. I read @thedispatch, which I hope is the future of media.
I stopped watching TV news some 20 years ago. TV journalism is not just partisan. It is shallow, ignorant, and emotive. Turn it off.
Tl;dr: There are no outlets that represent factual reality accurately, or that will always confirm your beliefs (why would you want that anyway?), or frame facts in narratives that are themselves either accurate or objective. That's the world. Stop expecting it to be otherwise.
