The effect of insisting that the goal of all media is a political one rather than a journalistic one is to hasten the creation of a terribly fragmented society, one in which if you are right wing you never read anything the lefties read and vice versa. That, in my view, leads to the old social terror of balkanization and to great difficulties for democracy.
There are too misunderstandings here.
First, neither I nor philip (if I may take the liberty of interpreting him) insist that the goal of a news outlet be political rather than journalistic. Its goal should be journalistic; but it will also have a political point of view and effect, whether it intends it or not. Its goal should either to openly declare its p.o.v. and publish good reporting with advocacy, or to try to be aware of its own biases, correct for them, and to to elevate factual reporting over its politics. What's maddening is those papers that claim to do the second while doing the first. As an example of a magazine that seems self-aware about its biases, I would cite Time, which has always seemed to me to self-consciously strive for the center.
The second misunderstanding is over the definition of "center". If Senator Kerry is not firmly on the left in your definition, then you have a definition of "center" that is well to the left of the American electorate's. I call a voter "centrist" who could not decide whether to vote for Bush or Gore in the last election. I suspect you call a voter "centrist" who could not decide to vote for Gore or Nader! Seriously, do you think that the New York Times is a leftist, centrist, or rightist paper? |
