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May 03, 2005
Media madness
Yesterday in class, we had to read an article from the New York Times and decide if it was “fair and balanced”. Gods, what an awful mess...
The article itself was a front-pager dealing with the republican chance from using the word “private” to “personal” in the Social Security deform context. It was, indeed, “fair and balanced”, giving roughly equal time to each side, giving context on the debate, asking Cato to defend themselves on the flip, and letting Cato explain the difference between the two words. See the problem?
When the article came out, we were in the middle of a debate on whether or not to completely change the way Social Security is run. On one side stood truth, justice, and the American way. On the other stood destruction of all we hold dear. Which side was which is an exercise I’ll leave for the reader, but isn’t it the job of the Media to do more than simply report on the semantics of the debate? I think we should expect the front page of America’s Flagship Newspaper to run at least a few stories about how social security works, its history, what might replace it, etc. The only reason even to read a print-edition paper is that they can take more time on an issue and really explore the ramifications. Almost like a daily magazine. If the best they can do is repeat a few talking points, carefully balancing each party’s against the other, I’ll not even bother to read it...
Posted by Andrew at May 3, 2005 01:05 PM
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