News In The Information Age
In the days since this long and draining trial ended I have been catching up on weeks worth of missed work at my day job. I’ve been following the news and blogs, but I’ve had little time to post. And while I’m not surprised, I have been struck by how much of our political discourse is driven by unreliable narrators. It is a world of nonsense and overly spun factoids that turn out to be half true at best.
For example, the other day I was driving home from work and there was Alan Greenspan on the radio explaining how efforts at stimulus spending had prevented our Galtian Overlords from investing in the recovery. I listened for a few moments. Does anybody really still trust this guy about the economy—or anything? Is there really any word string he could utter that should be taken as reliable? And yet, this walking epic failure and liar still gets a platform for his Galtian nonsense.
So called news organizations like Politico and Fox have built their business models on being unreliable narrators. Many others are following their lead. Dirtbags like Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed are treated as a serious persons. Being epically wrong is job security for the pundit class.
The media we have now is the outcome of 30 successful years of unrelenting media-bashing by the right. The news media is way more afraid of being called “liberal” than being called unreliable or irresponsible. They’ve convinced themselves that “balance” means you have a rightwing partisan and an objective reporter on a media panel (liberals need not apply because a reporter doesn’t want to be seen agreeing with them). For the media, being Right is way more important than being right. That’s why the people who were wrong about Iraq are still on TV while the people who were right will never be seen.
Tags: So-Called Liberal Media
“The news media is way more afraid of being called “liberal” than being called unreliable or irresponsible.”
So true, and very well put.
I’m worried. Once the gays get middle class respectability they might want to pull the ladder up behind them and start voting for Republicans. It could happen.
This is an awesome post by Dennis G — it should be required reading by all journalists and their editors so that they can get a better sense how just how they are letting down their audience.
So we can’t be the only people who know this, right? I’m going to be horrified if I ever find out that our political journalist class thinks that they are listening to reliable information when they are pointing their microphones at people. So if we can presume that they know that some of the people they are talking to are this unreliable, then the only thing that is left is that they repeat what gets said because it is an *alternate viewpoint*. Often with alternate facts, but our media isn’t going to be interested in giving us information (the kind of stuff that lets you act as an informed citizen), but thinks it can get by with telling you what two sides say and hope you don’t notice that you haven’t gotten any *information* here.
if by that you meant that they are more interested in spouting the lies of the left than getting things right and reporting facts then I agree with you.
“Being epically wrong is job security for the pundit class”
That is absolutely true, particularly for leftists pundits who have a penchant for being epically wrong.
“That is absolutely true, particularly for leftists pundits who have a penchant for being epically wrong.”
Feel free to provide examples rather than spreading your ignorance.