Clowns to the Left, Jokers to the Right: On the Actual Ideology of the US Press

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2010/06/14/ideology_press.html

by barrkel • 16 years ago

59 5 16 years ago

journalism.nyu.edu

vl• 16 years ago

>Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

Strangely I was under impression it was other way around.

Towle_• 16 years ago

Well then you're an Obamabot/Palinist and you're blind as a bat, drinking all your Kool-aid, pulling the wool over your own eyes. Commie.

Seriously though, this is a great read.

jjs• 16 years ago

It's a lyric from the classic rock song "Stuck in the Middle with You."

politicalist• 16 years ago

I enjoyed this essay, but the author makes unnecessary divisions. Many on the "extremes" have expressed all the positions he describes, to some extent. These aren't really incompatible frameworks, unless they're taken as dogmatic.

For instance, a person might believe all of the following:

1. Media companies serve their owners, just like any other company. To a rough first approximation, this will predict what the product will look like. Along with the fact that advertisers are the main customers.

2. Journalists often show a liberal bias, and this shows up in their work. "Liberal" here means what someone like Bill Gates might believe in. This allows them to define the bounds of the left.

3. There exist "High Broderists" who purport to define a moderate center -- halfway in between the two parties.

4. The press uses little tactics like "he-said-she-said journalism" and "the sphere of deviance."

asdflkj• 16 years ago

"It's very simple": journalists mainly do what they think will make them look good in front of other journalists. The author did a good job of elaborating on that, though.

This is an instance of a very broad and very underappreciated pattern in society. Replace "journalists" with "women" in that sentence, or with "university professors", and it's just as true.

Clowns to the Left, Jokers to the Right: On the Actual Ideology of the US Press

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