The new public editor at the New York Times, Margaret Sullivan, worries that newspapers, including the Times, try too hard to be balanced, to give both sides, even when one side is obviously right.
Let me start by saying that, however hard they try, many newspapers, including the Times, often fail to provide the kind of balance that they should — and many of our "mainstream" journalists don't even try for balance.
An example from the Times: For years, I read David Leonhardt's stories about cost control in medicine. I often found them interesting, but after a while I noticed something lacking: Leonhardt was simply unwilling to write stories on using markets to control costs. For example, he interviewed Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who has had success in moving state employees to health savings accounts. According to the stories I have read — not in the Times — the HSAs saved money, made the employees happier, and had no effect on health outcomes.
Why didn't Leonhardt ask Daniels about them, why didn't Leonhardt look at other uses of markets to control costs? I don't know, but I am inclined to think that Leonhardt thinks that using markets to control health care costs is immoral. That's an understandable view, though I don't share it, but it does sharply constrain the possible ways we can control health care costs. (Leonhardt has called for the appointment of a super bureaucrat to make ObamaCare work.)
If that is what Leonhardt thinks, he should be honest enough to tell the readers. And the Times should get someone else to cover the stories Leonhardt is unwilling to cover.
But whatever you think about the success (or failure) of our newspapers to do balanced stories, or even if you think they try too hard for balance, I think we can agree that our broadcast news organizations often don't even try to balance their stories.
This morning, for example, I saw local news anchor Meg Coyle do a story on the first anniversary of the "Occupy" movement. There are many criticisms that could be made of the movement — some would object, for example, to the murders, rapes, and thefts associated with it — but Coyle did not share any of those criticisms with the viewers. Instead, she did a completely positive story, a story that could have been written by a PR man for the movement.
Unbalanced stories, like this one, are common from our broadcast news organizations. I don't know why they so often don't even attempt to do balanced stories, but I wish they would try a little harder to be balanced.
Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.
(Does Coyle know the unpleasant facts about the "Occupy" movement and choose not to share them with her viewers, or she does not know them? Good question, but one for which I have no answer, since I seldom watch her.)
Posted by Jim Miller at September 16, 2012 08:31 PM | Email ThisYou make one fundamental and fatal assumption in your posting. This fatal assumption is common to most people on the right. It is, simply, that that the left (and by extension the news media whom have clearly identified themselves with leftist ideals based on the self-identification at a rate of 85% or so) do not consider balance of view points to be balance at all.
When the ones who arbitrate what is truth measure that truth through their particular prism, the question is no longer whether it is moral to balance opposing views but rather is it moral to report on and identify what is true.
In their mind, to "balance" the news in the way you suggest would be to give equal weight to the rantings of a lunatic and the serious contemplations of a learned scholar. It is obvious to them that this is not balance but rather folly.
You can see quite clearly from the postings of many of our left-side commentators* that they give zero credibility to the right's positions. Not only do they reject the premise, they reject the person.
It is ipso facto that if we reject their position we are either ignorant, malevolent, or insane. It is very obvious in the way they address our arguments. They often do not engage the argument itself but rather impugn the motivation that they assume underlies the argument and the argument itself is simply a justification to allow them to perpetuate whatever ill they intend to foist upon the weak and helpless.
Thus, your argument, while clearly resonating with conservatives will simply be non-sensical to the liberal.
*This does not mean that all liberal commentators fail to engage the argument and consider that conservatives may have a valid position from which to argue, and it does not mean there are not some few conservatives that do the same to liberals. My point is to illustrate from those that do as a basis for argument that it is the basis for media unappologetically maintaining their bias.
Posted by: Eyago on September 16, 2012 09:47 PMFrom his interview with Daniels (NYT 1/5/11, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/business/economy/05leonhardt.html):
Mr. Daniels has tried to "implant accountability," as he puts it. The state measures workers' performance and has given bigger raises to top performers. Mr. Daniels also holds an annual ceremony to celebrate workers who have saved Indiana money. The focus on performance has allowed the state to reduce its work force, largely through attrition, and still function well. "So far, he's managed to do it without a noticeable loss of service," John Ketzenberger, president of the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute, told me later. Lawrence DeBoer, a state budget expert at Purdue, added, "You've got to give them some credit for that."
...and...
Today, people understandably push for the most expensive treatments because they don't pay the bill. He would prefer that if you and your family choose to spend tens of thousands of dollars on your final weeks of life, you understand that "the inheritance you will leave to your kids is going to be wiped out, cut in half or something." Either way, he acknowledged, the choice is "impossibly difficult."
The article is nothing but bloviation and something to divert the attention from the real issues plaguing this country leading up to the election. I am not impressed.
Posted by: KDS on September 16, 2012 10:26 PMTranslation:
"It's too bad we can't drop all pretense of objectivity and openly support the Democrats."
Posted by: LesLein on September 17, 2012 02:09 AMI think balance is best achieved by being willing to report anything newsworthy, regardless of who is involved vs trying to stick to some kind of artificial metric where if something bad is reported about this group, then something bad must be reported on this other group so as to be "fair".
Posted by: Brian on September 17, 2012 10:54 AMThe leftist media's greatest failing is to ignore valid (and sometimes major) news stories that...if reported honestly and objectively....would favor a conservative viewpoint. Only fools and the indoctrinated settle for the biased tripe presented as "news" by most major urban fishwraps and television networks.
Posted by: Saltherring on September 17, 2012 11:30 AMIt's not unfair to point that out.
Nor is it unfair to point out that right wingers who want the health insurance companies to operate in the former 'free market' venue that existed prior to 'Obamacare' clearly do not know that health insurance, like the oil companies, are and have always been, government sanctioned monopolies that can and do legally collude on prices.
They are allowed to fix prices. That's not a free market.
The argument with much of what right wing America has to say is not that people disagree with you in principle, it's that you often don't know what you are talking about and come to wrong conclusions -- which you take to be a criticism of your principle -- when it is merely a criticism of your often tenuous grip on the actual facts of the matter.
To quote Newt Gingrich: "Conservatives at this point in time have to start knowing things as well as believing things."
So, the criticism is more that you are intellectually lazy rather than philosophically wrong.
Posted by: dorky dorkman on September 17, 2012 01:30 PMTraditional liberal and liberal progressive viewpoints are two different things. Traditional liberal uses some modicum of critical thinking, while liberal progs do not - they base their views on largely on emotion, and their motive is propaganda which makes facts irrelevant.
To quote Newt Gingrich: "Conservatives at this point in time have to start knowing things as well as believing things."
Above is an example of a liberal prog trick - there is no context to describe the background of this quote and it is not certain that this is an actual quote. It's akin to throwing excrement at a wall and seeing if it sticks.
"So, the criticism is more that you are intellectually lazy rather than philosophically wrong."
Dork you are the pot calling the kettle black !
I pointed out a few factual errors regularly made by right wingers:
"They (oil companies and health insurance companies) are allowed to fix prices. That's not a free market."
and
"A right winger who warns the president to keep his socialist hands off medicare clearly has a defective viewpoint."
You don't have a clue, do you?
Posted by: dorky dorkman on September 17, 2012 02:21 PMThe profligate spending, staggering new regulations, the massive changes to healthcare, rampant idealistic environmentalism, green energy dogma, utopian mass transit, bicycle dreams, etc. There's never a reporting on what does not work, nor an accounting, nor even a modicum of cost benefit analysis nor sanity checking for any of the above.
Only a fanatical and fundamentalist belief in The Noble Cause.
That's just it though, for every person that finds the major traditional media outlets to be leftist, there is another that feels they are too "corporate" or "GE rubes" (quoted from a various left leaning blogs).
I suppose I'm guilty of settling like you mention, but there is little alternative. Go too far in any ideological direction and all of a sudden sound journalistic practices are less frequently found, which is at least as much of, if not more-so, a problem as notions of balance.
I'm only defending the traditional media insofar as recognizing that they will never be balanced enough for everyone, and the loudest of those that complain, also tend to be the least numerous. They could all do better, but I'm not exactly jumping up to take on the job, nor do I have ideas that haven't already been tried to make it better.
Posted by: Brian on September 17, 2012 03:52 PMYou were one of the main people I had in mind when writing post #1.
You are the intellectually lazy one because you rely on left wing sources to feed you your facts and do not make any effort to find the truth, mostly because you already believe in the goodness of all left and the badness of all right. It is very evident in your very "fact" you use as exhibit A. Conservatives do not want to go to the pre-Obamacare method and have always been critical of the government sanctioned monopoly. We actually want a free-market solution, and we do not think the pre-Obamacare environment was a free-market solution at all, but you don't know that because you already "know" what we think and never bother to actually find things out.
And, if you had half a brain, you would know that Obamacare actually makes the government sanctioned monopoly even worse which is WHY the insurance companies signed on to the plan in the first place. This is one of the key elements we oppose, but again, you would not know that because you already "know" other things.
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." ~Mark Twain
Posted by: Eyago on September 17, 2012 03:56 PMWe are not going to let the media steal this election. We're going to win this election. The country belongs to the people, not The New York Times.
Since enough capital to fund a 'free market' in healthcare is unlikely, why don't offer a realistic solution?
I don't foresee a market with Eyago's and Dorky's respective healthcare products going head to head in the free market and the monopolists who control it now would be very unlikely to let go of the prerogatives that they already have.
You reduce something to childish simplicity and then whine when your solution (which amounts to nothing more than the mantric repitition of the 'free market' shibboleth)is derided.
Stop crying, whining, and posing as an intellectual superior when you clearly are not.
Posted by: dorky dorkman on September 17, 2012 04:38 PMYou're a genius!
If Jim Miller does not run for WA Governor in 2016, you should. You have just as good a shot of being the first elected WA Republican Governor since 1980 as McKenna does in becoming the first Republican Governor in 30 years - none.
Move to Venezuela or a Muslim country if you don't like less government.
You had no response of your questionable quote by Gingrich, which proved nothing, because you have nothing.
"A right winger who warns the president to keep his socialist hands off medicare clearly has a defective viewpoint."
No one of notoriety made that quote - if it even existed, a Tea Party poster matters not. You are a liar.
Wow, thanks Obama! They love us now, they really love us!
Posted by: Monterey on September 17, 2012 06:30 PMYou are absolutely correct.
And the damn LIBRUL UNBALANCED media just put the stake through Romney's political chances by posting videos of Romney's own words!
SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters
GD LIBRUL MEDIA!
In other news, Rick Santorum, de facto 2016 Republican Front Runner, explains the (un)SP Peanut Gallery - Rick Santorum tells audience that 'smart people' will never be on their side
Republicans - admitted party of the not smart
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on September 17, 2012 07:00 PMYou should have seen when Clint Eastwood debated the imaginary man in the chair. Talk about substance!
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on September 17, 2012 08:06 PMJust like 1980...
LOL!
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on September 17, 2012 08:44 PMYour boy - Obama is the president of the deadbeat dads and the welfare queens - with handouts and no fiscal responsibility. He'd like it better if this country became a banana republic, which could turn this place into with his executive orders, given another 4 years.
Do you like that prospect ? If so, when did you have your
lobotomy ?
Don't these priviliged wingnuts love to pose as victims?
Posted by: dorky dorkman on September 18, 2012 08:58 AMProve it. Or is this another of those wingnut things that you have to believe but don't need to know about?
To quote Newt Gingrich: "Conservatives at this point in time have to start knowing things as well as believing things."
Posted by: dorky dorkman on September 18, 2012 09:04 AMAnd as bad as that was compare it to this statement...
"If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,' if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2."
THAT one is certainly a nice alienating sentiment.
Or how about...
"You got into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Yes, that Obama guy certainly knows how to draw people together, doesn't he?
Posted by: Eyago on September 18, 2012 11:59 AMTo quote Newt Gingrich: "Conservatives at this point in time have to start knowing things as well as believing things."
Posted by dorky dorkman at September 18, 2012 09:04 AM
Trying to change the subject again.
Here's your proof - Compare the number of Americans on Food stamps - In 2008 approx. 33 Million vs. today 46.5 Million. Disability - In 2008 5 Million vs. today over 9 Million.
Your quote by Gingrich has been tried and it proved nothing due to lack of substance except to you. Dork - Now answer this - when did you have your lobotomy ?
Posted by: KDS on September 18, 2012 12:45 PMDon't be fatuous. We're in a Republican caused recession -- the biggest since the actual depression -- and you are surprised and casting the finger of blame at Democrats?
Besides, there are big corporate interests interested in retaining food stamps -- like corporate farms.
When money is put into the economy, it has a multiplier effect, so food stamps and disability AND (your favorite) defense spending, helps with economic recovery.
Maybe some job creation via massive infrastructure spending would help. But you guys squelched it.
Posted by: dorky dorkman on September 18, 2012 01:23 PMProve it. You can't prove it though without being a liar. Harry Reid is as much at fault as Obama, because he has suppressed over 30 bills passed by the House that would have helped small businesses. Democrats are anti-small business. You are a coward to admit that and also a liar.
If you support the liberal progressive agenda, you are a corporatist - so that argument is bogus. You are also using Pelosi's logic about Food Stamps helping the economy. You are stupid about the economy, just as Pelosi, the dumb beeotch is.
Again, Dork when did you have your lobotomy ?