That was a great editorial. Thanks for sharing it. That book by Timothy Ryback they mention sounds very good as well.
People lately are in high dudgeon over our “rhetoric.” The rhetoric doesn’t bother me. The lies and logical fallacies do. If someone is arguing honestly then I think that sorts out a lot of problems.
My local paper has become so milquetoast. It’s refreshing to see one that still takes a stand.
Thank you, thank you Anne. I'd give you a million likes if I could. The editor is a truth teller, a man of clear principle and facts. Dr. Timothy Snyder, today, discusses the dualism embedded in our lives, and its historical importance as a reductionist manner in which "clear thinking" is so thinned out and wrong. I plan on subscribing to The Cleveland Plains today. Thank you again!!
”The courteous writers don’t go down that road. They politely ask how we can discount the passions and beliefs of the many people who believe in Trump.”
🤦🏻♂️
He obliquely answers that question later, but the succinct response is… EASY! — because the bigger, more important questions are, “How can they tolerate outright lies regardless of how passionately they’re held?!”… “How can they validate those “mistaken beliefs” by not calling out the truth?!” …and still call themselves “journalists”.
The author notes that they don’t tolerate “flat-earth” theories… yet too many news outlets report clear and outright lies without challenging them, for example, “election fraud” — in spite of 60 lawsuits thrown out for ‘lack of evidence’, Sidney Powell admitting as much in a guilty plea, lawsuits against Giuliani claiming same going against him….
The Cleveland plain Dealer editor has the most clarity for me in this. I was having trouble with Snyder's above but will read it again. I go to many sources for the truth ( and I am not putting that in quotes) before I arrive at my own opinion.. which has changed slightly or maybe somewhat. But there is always a core of right and wrong for me. Maybe that is more biblical than yin and yang. The media, responsible media, has been coming around.. at least the NYTimes has. Some people on these boards are so angry that they dared to tell the truth about Biden before then "finally" went after Trump. Maybe this was bothsiderism. It seemed to connect for me to the truth only... or a worthy attempt. Of course we can complain. But the media is people... and groups mostly of people who can *stomach* working with each other for the aggregate result. I was very happy to read Masha Gessen's in the NYT, her first?, a welcome voice.
Just try to imagine the Both Sides approach for media covering Churchill and Hitler, 80 years ago. It’s self evident how absurd this is. — No, the truth is not “always somewhere in the middle”!
Say it loud for those in the back who don't understand the manipulation that is occurring. The line between "reporters" and "commentators" has been blurred if not erased. The facts of the matter that reporters unearth are hardly discernible as they are smothered by this rush of opinion in the pseudo equality you describe. Any new information is blunted by the practice of mentioning, if not repeating, opposing positions instead of letting the new information stand for scrutiny on its own. Sadly enough, this attitude trickles down to direct the questions that reporters ask, creating a cycle that enlarges opinion of small things rather than exposure of the context and larger truth. All of this is done without shame, with righteous indignation. I so miss the neutrality and conciseness of Rather and Cronkite.
Finally! Finally someone, (not finally you) handled this subject properly. Grabbed it by the horns* you might say.
I complain about false equivalence all the time, but without the nuance. Your study of religion, mythology, and philosophy combined with a solid habit of paying attention are gifts that keep on giving.
As one who taught elementary school kids for over 40 years, I’d put the whole thing rather more simply; reduced to the endless times I had some kid I’d just caught in a lie or some other bit of miscreance yell back at me, “But he did it, too!”
Hi, Laura. I just google ''a with grave accent'' or ''e with acute accent,'' and do a copy/paste of that one letter. I've done it so many times that all I have to do is type, ''e with'' and the drop down search finishes it for me. Because I read a lot of central and eastern European history and for that reason am in regular need of diacritics, maybe I should just make a list of all the alt codes for the ones I use most often.
Only you, Rose! Hope you've been well since we last zoomed. I'm still doing that thing. They're raking in 2 to 4 million* dollars on every call for swing races. Gaining momentum on every call. Thanks for the tip. I'll print it out and keep it by my keyboard.
That's fantastic! My sister called about 2m ago to say that Biden has dropped out of the race, and I haven't had a chance yet to read anything about it. One of the things I've been meaning to ask you is, Is it better to contribute in small donations over a period of time, or donate larges amount less often?
Rose, give everything now, early money is vastly more valuable than late money. Many of the persuasion campaigns funded establish a foundation of nonpartisan messaging to build trust with persuadable voters, then they swing in with the vote for whomever message at the tail end.
On my android tablet I have a German keyboard that is selectable via the little “globe” key on the bottom row. That keyboard has all the umlauts. On my Windows machine I have both the English International and German keyboards With the former, to type an umlaut character you first type a double quote then the letter. For example to type ö you would type “ then o.
“This normalization has consequences. If one of the two aspects of Both Sides seems to have done a great evil, the priests of Both Sides always ritually vituperate the other side. The price of the restoration of mystical equality is the rehabilitation of the criminal and the degradation of the blameless.”
But they don’t restore equality or balance. They elevate the criminal over the blameless. That’s the biggest part of the problem. They pick the winners when they do this. There is no balance.
Why is the duality the prevailing narrative? Why not the search for truth? I get that human history is founded on imaginary stories that explain the heavens and earth, but that’s because we didn’t have access to better data and better theory to craft better explanations. What those myths and religions seek to do is explain and impose order on the unknown, but as far as I know, they all grapple with good and evil in some fashion. Heaven and hell, angel and devil. Those stories don’t try to equalize good and evil.
In our modern politics we have really arrived at a point where what media does is to equalize good and evil. Trump is a liar. A criminal. A rapist. An insurrectionist. A traitor. By any definition, any value scheme, he’s a bad, bad man.
Both-sidesism gives the Republican Party cover to celebrate evil as goodness and to elevate the devil to the position of king.
We’re not talking about both-sidesing tax policy here. Or cuts to social programs. Or regulatory policy.
We are talking about elevating a shallow husk of a human being, a pathological narcissist, a bad, bad man who likes to imagine that he is Jesus Christ (although in another mood we can all imagine him saying “I like people who weren’t crucified, alright?”) over an actual godly man who knows that he sins and asks forgiveness and who grieves over the moral ambiguity that comes with the job.
The media isn’t equalizing these two men. They are creating every opportunity to elevate the evil while actively trying to defeat the good. They aren’t reporting facts for people to make up their own mind. They have become active political agents, trying to push the best guy out of the election.
I think the media has gone beyond both-sidesing this election. I think they are actively “obeying in advance” to use your words. Hedging their bets and trying to remove any reason for Trump to punish them if he returns to office (spoiler alert: he will anyway.). They know if Biden were to win they are safe. The only threat comes from the side willing to violate all the norms. But by treating Trump with kid gloves while doing his bidding by humiliating Biden for being old (that was Trump’s frame after all. Biden played into it with that debate failure but had the Republicans (with a likely Russian/Chinese assist on social media) not so thoroughly seeded the minds of reporters, the media, elected Democratic officials and the public with the narrative that Biden is demented and incapable, there might have been more real curiosity over what happened at the debate and less of an immediate rush to the snap-judgment that Biden needed to exit the race. Once people were dug in on that position they had to defend it and became less capable of looking for alternate explanations. But I was struck by an appearance by Bob Woodward on some cable show the day after the debate. While everyone else all day had basically surrendered to Trump’s narrative that Biden was demented and unfit and needed to step down, Woodward said something to the effect of “I’m a reporter. And the question in my mind is ‘what the heck happened?’”
(To be clear, the Biden campaign has done little to push back on that narrative, should never have let a sick Biden out on a debate stage and has managed the fallout excruciatingly poorly. I’d have had the detailed results of a thorough cognitive work up by an independent specialist in the inbox of every reporter in the country by the time they woke up the day after the debate. But that’s me. And also besides the point. A Democrat shouldn’t have to run a campaign twice as good as a Republican just to get equal media coverage. Trump fell asleep at his own convention. Media yawned. If Biden manages to survive and then stumbles over a name in Chicago the media will demand he step down. Assuming they have ever stopped.
I am not 100% sure I buy your distinction between corporate media and reporters. Jake Tapper is an excellent reporter. Corporate media restrictions on how he did his job meant that he could not say, after Trump called Biden a liar during the debate for quoting his “suckers and losers” line and said that Biden made the story up, “I reported that story for CNN, Mr. Trump. I interviewed John Kelly who says he heard you say those words. Are you calling me and John Kelly liars as well?” The fact that he did not say that, could not say that, means that his value as a truth teller is impaired.
The New York Times Editorial Board calls Trump 'Unfit to Lead" See link below. Unfortunately, I have run out of gifted links. If any reader can supply such a link, I would be most grateful.
Linda, I am very happy to see you. The amount I was reading and absorbing called for a reduction of Substacks. I wasn't happy to leave LFAA after almost 3 years, but my old eyes insisted. Thank you for stopping by. I hope that you are well and will be looking for you on Thinking about.....
Thanks. A coin has two sides, toss up. The concept of journalists not caring or understanding we are on crossroads, again. Worse now tech manifesto and Thiel’s anti democratic form of authoritarianism of Oligarchs who wish to preserve their way, their wealth and their power. Aristotle understood.
Wonderfully original perspective. I've studied cults, after leaving one, for 30 years. Before reading this, I assumed that both-sidesing journos were just covering their asses by appeasing their oligarch bosses. But I think you are rightly seeing the deeper layers. In my own language, I would say that at least some of the journos who adhere to the both sides "cult" are deluding themselves, believing that they are behaving that way for a higher purpose. Trump's delusion of omnipotence is so dazzling and compelling that they see it as meaning something worth acknowledging - Zuck just had to acknowledge what a badass Trump is, for example. These journos and other followers dive into Trump's delusion, the thrill of all the noise and the grandiosity, and dismiss the most vicious and vile Trumpisms as hyperbole, irony, or maybe even "crazy wisdom" - the phrase that covers up the crimes and abuses of so many gurus. Thanks for your always excellent work.
Yes, Daniel, he is: "But I think you are rightly seeing the deeper layers."
And yes, on this: "Trump's delusion of omnipotence is so dazzling and compelling that they see it as meaning something worth acknowledging." Trump is truly spectacular, in a way that should only be encountered in fiction.
The both-sides-ism of today's corporate media appears to be, at least in part, a decayed remnant of the fairness doctrine of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Introduced in 1949 and abolished in 1987, the fairness doctrine required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints. The FCC removed the rule that implemented the policy from the Federal Register in August 2011.
The older equal-time rule is still in force. It specifies that American radio and television broadcast stations must provide equivalent access to competing political candidates.
The high priests of corporate media are their lawyers, who no doubt rely on the past regulatory model of fairness in (they would say) an abundance of caution. The business side, of course, doesn't want to lose any advertisers, subscribers, or clicks.
The reporters are more frequently having to battle their own newsroom management to protect the integrity of their work. We have seen this very recently at the Washington Post.
Excellent point on a decayed remnant of fairness doctrine!✔️
Equal access is one thing — and must be allowed otherwise journalists become the “deciders” what we hear rather than we deciding for ourselves.
However, leaving it at “equal access” is an horrendous abdication of “truth in reporting”.
A journalist does not decide what is true and what is false — the record speaks and demonstrates it… as long as the record is accessed and presented alongside what is being said today.
That is not only how we have a choice in we listen to, but equally important, also how we are not duped by what we listen to. How else can we make informed decisions based on facts and not “alternative facts”?
Yes the media is very bias, both sides is a smoke screen. They disguise the achievements of the Dems and the horrible agenda of the "GOP". Most of the media is owned by rightwing billionaires.
They spread lies and distort reality. Sinclair has bought up most local news media, Fox is the most watched "fake" news TV station. X and many other Podcasts demonize the Dems 24/7. Brainwashing has worked wonders, most Americans have completely forgotten the horrors of the Trump presidency. On top of that we have the failure of Biden and the Dems to remind the public of his reign of terror; His crazy tweets/ he defunded the the EPA (terrible pollution, toxic waste in our rivers and streams)/ got rid of OSHA (no protection for workers) /cancelled home owners rebate/tried to cancel "Obama care"/violent attacks on minorities/ doubled billionaires wealth (1.75 trillion tax cut) etc. etc.
It is mind bottling to me that so many Dems are jumping on Biden instead of going after Trump. To the public they are signaling that Trump is a younger and better candidate (he mixes up names all the time and is incoherent in his speeches). The debate was a disaster they should never have called Trump "the winner". Trump lied about everything and did not answer any questions. Biden was weak and was clearly overwhelmed by the flood of lies but nobody mention the 2nd part of the debate when he recovered. The MAGA party (former GOP) is united behind a career criminal, a very dangerous man who has serious mental problems, he is sadistic and cruel, a dictator who will be immune. This is a very dangerous time and the Dems are in a panic as what to do.It is very late for a new candidate to be nominated. We all wish we had a younger candidate but no matter how old Biden is, he has a great team behind him and may be our last hope to safe democracy. Trump comes with Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon and the most violent militias/ white supremacists/neo nazis / a racist police force. etc No rights for women/minorities or LBTQ.
Yes, but the overarching religious belief in the US is Capitalism in which the journalistic faith in bothsidesism is nestled by virtue of the fact that the media are a business. And its opposite is Communism, a phantasm that must be vanquished at all cost. This is the Manicheanism of our time. Any steps taken to lessen Capitalism's harshness are met by cries of "first step to Communism." But what happens when the populace lose faith? We are a country with 800-900 billionaires and who knows how many hundred-millionaires, while at the same time almost 40% cannot come up with $400 in an emergency and more than 60% are living paycheck to paycheck. In that situation, the illusion of a real "contest" that's neck-to-neck becomes even more of a necessity. That will make readers come back for more. Bothsidesism may be a faith of its own, but I wouldn't discount the profit motive. After all, the how-to-cover orders come from the editors-in-chief.
As humans, we instinctively think in dualisms: yes-no, good-bad, for-against. I wonder if our cognitive inclinations are connected to our physiognomy. We are, after all, a bisymmetric species. If we had evolved from a starfish-like creature, would our cognitive inclinations be pentagonal?
Pete, I just read A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains and he talks about how nematodes (bilaterians like us) learned to steer and the logic is very binary. Same basic algorithm as a Roomba vacuum cleaner. It is a long and very dense book, but you can get this stuff in Youtube interviews.
I'm not a science type, more liberal artsy and read it with one of my book clubs, but I saw the value of it -- if you read about the bio and background of the author, it is especially impressive.
This entrenched dualistic way that media companies package the work of their journalists is so pervasive that when an outlet calls it out, people respond very enthusiastically. Recently the Cleveland Plain Dealer did so in an editorial that enthused folks from all over the world to the point of subscribing, even if they live far from Cleveland. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2024/03/our-trump-reporting-upsets-some-readers-but-there-arent-two-sides-to-facts-letter-from-the-editor.html
Yes, that was an excellent response from the editor of the Plain Dealer. It showed just how flimsy bothsidesism really is.
That was a great editorial. Thanks for sharing it. That book by Timothy Ryback they mention sounds very good as well.
People lately are in high dudgeon over our “rhetoric.” The rhetoric doesn’t bother me. The lies and logical fallacies do. If someone is arguing honestly then I think that sorts out a lot of problems.
My local paper has become so milquetoast. It’s refreshing to see one that still takes a stand.
Thank you, thank you Anne. I'd give you a million likes if I could. The editor is a truth teller, a man of clear principle and facts. Dr. Timothy Snyder, today, discusses the dualism embedded in our lives, and its historical importance as a reductionist manner in which "clear thinking" is so thinned out and wrong. I plan on subscribing to The Cleveland Plains today. Thank you again!!
Thank you for including the link. Wonderful articles!!
Thanks for the link to the article!✔️
The author notes and asks…
”The courteous writers don’t go down that road. They politely ask how we can discount the passions and beliefs of the many people who believe in Trump.”
🤦🏻♂️
He obliquely answers that question later, but the succinct response is… EASY! — because the bigger, more important questions are, “How can they tolerate outright lies regardless of how passionately they’re held?!”… “How can they validate those “mistaken beliefs” by not calling out the truth?!” …and still call themselves “journalists”.
The author notes that they don’t tolerate “flat-earth” theories… yet too many news outlets report clear and outright lies without challenging them, for example, “election fraud” — in spite of 60 lawsuits thrown out for ‘lack of evidence’, Sidney Powell admitting as much in a guilty plea, lawsuits against Giuliani claiming same going against him….
The Cleveland plain Dealer editor has the most clarity for me in this. I was having trouble with Snyder's above but will read it again. I go to many sources for the truth ( and I am not putting that in quotes) before I arrive at my own opinion.. which has changed slightly or maybe somewhat. But there is always a core of right and wrong for me. Maybe that is more biblical than yin and yang. The media, responsible media, has been coming around.. at least the NYTimes has. Some people on these boards are so angry that they dared to tell the truth about Biden before then "finally" went after Trump. Maybe this was bothsiderism. It seemed to connect for me to the truth only... or a worthy attempt. Of course we can complain. But the media is people... and groups mostly of people who can *stomach* working with each other for the aggregate result. I was very happy to read Masha Gessen's in the NYT, her first?, a welcome voice.
Just try to imagine the Both Sides approach for media covering Churchill and Hitler, 80 years ago. It’s self evident how absurd this is. — No, the truth is not “always somewhere in the middle”!
Say it loud for those in the back who don't understand the manipulation that is occurring. The line between "reporters" and "commentators" has been blurred if not erased. The facts of the matter that reporters unearth are hardly discernible as they are smothered by this rush of opinion in the pseudo equality you describe. Any new information is blunted by the practice of mentioning, if not repeating, opposing positions instead of letting the new information stand for scrutiny on its own. Sadly enough, this attitude trickles down to direct the questions that reporters ask, creating a cycle that enlarges opinion of small things rather than exposure of the context and larger truth. All of this is done without shame, with righteous indignation. I so miss the neutrality and conciseness of Rather and Cronkite.
Finally! Finally someone, (not finally you) handled this subject properly. Grabbed it by the horns* you might say.
I complain about false equivalence all the time, but without the nuance. Your study of religion, mythology, and philosophy combined with a solid habit of paying attention are gifts that keep on giving.
Keep giving. Your gift is received.
* both of them
Dan Froomkin has been on this for years. He used to write for the WaPo. His Substack is: criticalread@substack.com. Check it out.
As one who taught elementary school kids for over 40 years, I’d put the whole thing rather more simply; reduced to the endless times I had some kid I’d just caught in a lie or some other bit of miscreance yell back at me, “But he did it, too!”
As elegant take-down of the American “media”:as I have ever read. Thank you.
The cult of Both Sides is the dogmatic distraction from the bloody sacrifice of a republic.
Especially when it comes to fighting TRUMP’s GQP MAGA Lugenpresse 🤥
That's spelled Lügenpresse
If I had a nickel for every time I didn't write "à la" because I'm too lazy to figure out how to do the accent grave [sic].
Hi, Laura. I just google ''a with grave accent'' or ''e with acute accent,'' and do a copy/paste of that one letter. I've done it so many times that all I have to do is type, ''e with'' and the drop down search finishes it for me. Because I read a lot of central and eastern European history and for that reason am in regular need of diacritics, maybe I should just make a list of all the alt codes for the ones I use most often.
Only you, Rose! Hope you've been well since we last zoomed. I'm still doing that thing. They're raking in 2 to 4 million* dollars on every call for swing races. Gaining momentum on every call. Thanks for the tip. I'll print it out and keep it by my keyboard.
*corrected
That's fantastic! My sister called about 2m ago to say that Biden has dropped out of the race, and I haven't had a chance yet to read anything about it. One of the things I've been meaning to ask you is, Is it better to contribute in small donations over a period of time, or donate larges amount less often?
Rose, give everything now, early money is vastly more valuable than late money. Many of the persuasion campaigns funded establish a foundation of nonpartisan messaging to build trust with persuadable voters, then they swing in with the vote for whomever message at the tail end.
million (billion I wish)
I confess I did question that when I read it, but thought, well maybe it is true!
That's why I blame elites instead of élites.
Of course, I speak German 😉
moi aussi
gesundheit
How do you type those two little dots?
On my android tablet I have a German keyboard that is selectable via the little “globe” key on the bottom row. That keyboard has all the umlauts. On my Windows machine I have both the English International and German keyboards With the former, to type an umlaut character you first type a double quote then the letter. For example to type ö you would type “ then o.
BTW the android French keyboard is useless.
ask Rose Mason
“This normalization has consequences. If one of the two aspects of Both Sides seems to have done a great evil, the priests of Both Sides always ritually vituperate the other side. The price of the restoration of mystical equality is the rehabilitation of the criminal and the degradation of the blameless.”
But they don’t restore equality or balance. They elevate the criminal over the blameless. That’s the biggest part of the problem. They pick the winners when they do this. There is no balance.
Why is the duality the prevailing narrative? Why not the search for truth? I get that human history is founded on imaginary stories that explain the heavens and earth, but that’s because we didn’t have access to better data and better theory to craft better explanations. What those myths and religions seek to do is explain and impose order on the unknown, but as far as I know, they all grapple with good and evil in some fashion. Heaven and hell, angel and devil. Those stories don’t try to equalize good and evil.
In our modern politics we have really arrived at a point where what media does is to equalize good and evil. Trump is a liar. A criminal. A rapist. An insurrectionist. A traitor. By any definition, any value scheme, he’s a bad, bad man.
Both-sidesism gives the Republican Party cover to celebrate evil as goodness and to elevate the devil to the position of king.
We’re not talking about both-sidesing tax policy here. Or cuts to social programs. Or regulatory policy.
We are talking about elevating a shallow husk of a human being, a pathological narcissist, a bad, bad man who likes to imagine that he is Jesus Christ (although in another mood we can all imagine him saying “I like people who weren’t crucified, alright?”) over an actual godly man who knows that he sins and asks forgiveness and who grieves over the moral ambiguity that comes with the job.
The media isn’t equalizing these two men. They are creating every opportunity to elevate the evil while actively trying to defeat the good. They aren’t reporting facts for people to make up their own mind. They have become active political agents, trying to push the best guy out of the election.
I think the media has gone beyond both-sidesing this election. I think they are actively “obeying in advance” to use your words. Hedging their bets and trying to remove any reason for Trump to punish them if he returns to office (spoiler alert: he will anyway.). They know if Biden were to win they are safe. The only threat comes from the side willing to violate all the norms. But by treating Trump with kid gloves while doing his bidding by humiliating Biden for being old (that was Trump’s frame after all. Biden played into it with that debate failure but had the Republicans (with a likely Russian/Chinese assist on social media) not so thoroughly seeded the minds of reporters, the media, elected Democratic officials and the public with the narrative that Biden is demented and incapable, there might have been more real curiosity over what happened at the debate and less of an immediate rush to the snap-judgment that Biden needed to exit the race. Once people were dug in on that position they had to defend it and became less capable of looking for alternate explanations. But I was struck by an appearance by Bob Woodward on some cable show the day after the debate. While everyone else all day had basically surrendered to Trump’s narrative that Biden was demented and unfit and needed to step down, Woodward said something to the effect of “I’m a reporter. And the question in my mind is ‘what the heck happened?’”
(To be clear, the Biden campaign has done little to push back on that narrative, should never have let a sick Biden out on a debate stage and has managed the fallout excruciatingly poorly. I’d have had the detailed results of a thorough cognitive work up by an independent specialist in the inbox of every reporter in the country by the time they woke up the day after the debate. But that’s me. And also besides the point. A Democrat shouldn’t have to run a campaign twice as good as a Republican just to get equal media coverage. Trump fell asleep at his own convention. Media yawned. If Biden manages to survive and then stumbles over a name in Chicago the media will demand he step down. Assuming they have ever stopped.
I am not 100% sure I buy your distinction between corporate media and reporters. Jake Tapper is an excellent reporter. Corporate media restrictions on how he did his job meant that he could not say, after Trump called Biden a liar during the debate for quoting his “suckers and losers” line and said that Biden made the story up, “I reported that story for CNN, Mr. Trump. I interviewed John Kelly who says he heard you say those words. Are you calling me and John Kelly liars as well?” The fact that he did not say that, could not say that, means that his value as a truth teller is impaired.
Oh, we are in a mess of a mess.
Excellent! Well thought out and articulated!👏
The New York Times Editorial Board calls Trump 'Unfit to Lead" See link below. Unfortunately, I have run out of gifted links. If any reader can supply such a link, I would be most grateful.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/11/opinion/editorials/donald-trump-2024-unfit.html
Trump doesn’t want Americans to know what Republicans stand for
The former president wants the 2024 GOP platform to be anodyne, but don’t be fooled. He has an extreme agenda.
By the Editorial BoardJuly 7, 2024 (The Washington Post) See gifted link below.
https://wapo.st/4cPMvMH
Thank you Fern! I’ve missed seeing your comments on HCR substack 🥰
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/11/opinion/editorials/donald-trump-2024-unfit.html?unlocked_article_code=1.800.Zcgp.4ipMBQ4emCHA&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Linda, I am very happy to see you. The amount I was reading and absorbing called for a reduction of Substacks. I wasn't happy to leave LFAA after almost 3 years, but my old eyes insisted. Thank you for stopping by. I hope that you are well and will be looking for you on Thinking about.....
So relieved you are okay—I was worried—happy you are reading Dr. Snyder! He is brilliant and a serious advocate for democracy 🗽☮️💟
You are both thoughtful and kind, Linda, and thank you for the gifted link to the NY Times Editorial Board's essay on why Trump is unfit. Salud!
Thanks. A coin has two sides, toss up. The concept of journalists not caring or understanding we are on crossroads, again. Worse now tech manifesto and Thiel’s anti democratic form of authoritarianism of Oligarchs who wish to preserve their way, their wealth and their power. Aristotle understood.
Wonderfully original perspective. I've studied cults, after leaving one, for 30 years. Before reading this, I assumed that both-sidesing journos were just covering their asses by appeasing their oligarch bosses. But I think you are rightly seeing the deeper layers. In my own language, I would say that at least some of the journos who adhere to the both sides "cult" are deluding themselves, believing that they are behaving that way for a higher purpose. Trump's delusion of omnipotence is so dazzling and compelling that they see it as meaning something worth acknowledging - Zuck just had to acknowledge what a badass Trump is, for example. These journos and other followers dive into Trump's delusion, the thrill of all the noise and the grandiosity, and dismiss the most vicious and vile Trumpisms as hyperbole, irony, or maybe even "crazy wisdom" - the phrase that covers up the crimes and abuses of so many gurus. Thanks for your always excellent work.
Yes, Daniel, he is: "But I think you are rightly seeing the deeper layers."
And yes, on this: "Trump's delusion of omnipotence is so dazzling and compelling that they see it as meaning something worth acknowledging." Trump is truly spectacular, in a way that should only be encountered in fiction.
The both-sides-ism of today's corporate media appears to be, at least in part, a decayed remnant of the fairness doctrine of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Introduced in 1949 and abolished in 1987, the fairness doctrine required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints. The FCC removed the rule that implemented the policy from the Federal Register in August 2011.
The older equal-time rule is still in force. It specifies that American radio and television broadcast stations must provide equivalent access to competing political candidates.
The high priests of corporate media are their lawyers, who no doubt rely on the past regulatory model of fairness in (they would say) an abundance of caution. The business side, of course, doesn't want to lose any advertisers, subscribers, or clicks.
The reporters are more frequently having to battle their own newsroom management to protect the integrity of their work. We have seen this very recently at the Washington Post.
Excellent point on a decayed remnant of fairness doctrine!✔️
Equal access is one thing — and must be allowed otherwise journalists become the “deciders” what we hear rather than we deciding for ourselves.
However, leaving it at “equal access” is an horrendous abdication of “truth in reporting”.
A journalist does not decide what is true and what is false — the record speaks and demonstrates it… as long as the record is accessed and presented alongside what is being said today.
That is not only how we have a choice in we listen to, but equally important, also how we are not duped by what we listen to. How else can we make informed decisions based on facts and not “alternative facts”?
An amazing tutorial from a historian of civil culture.
Often civil culture turns soúr. We have seen this over and over and Timothy Snyder has documented his research in interviews, stats and analysis .
Yes the media is very bias, both sides is a smoke screen. They disguise the achievements of the Dems and the horrible agenda of the "GOP". Most of the media is owned by rightwing billionaires.
They spread lies and distort reality. Sinclair has bought up most local news media, Fox is the most watched "fake" news TV station. X and many other Podcasts demonize the Dems 24/7. Brainwashing has worked wonders, most Americans have completely forgotten the horrors of the Trump presidency. On top of that we have the failure of Biden and the Dems to remind the public of his reign of terror; His crazy tweets/ he defunded the the EPA (terrible pollution, toxic waste in our rivers and streams)/ got rid of OSHA (no protection for workers) /cancelled home owners rebate/tried to cancel "Obama care"/violent attacks on minorities/ doubled billionaires wealth (1.75 trillion tax cut) etc. etc.
It is mind bottling to me that so many Dems are jumping on Biden instead of going after Trump. To the public they are signaling that Trump is a younger and better candidate (he mixes up names all the time and is incoherent in his speeches). The debate was a disaster they should never have called Trump "the winner". Trump lied about everything and did not answer any questions. Biden was weak and was clearly overwhelmed by the flood of lies but nobody mention the 2nd part of the debate when he recovered. The MAGA party (former GOP) is united behind a career criminal, a very dangerous man who has serious mental problems, he is sadistic and cruel, a dictator who will be immune. This is a very dangerous time and the Dems are in a panic as what to do.It is very late for a new candidate to be nominated. We all wish we had a younger candidate but no matter how old Biden is, he has a great team behind him and may be our last hope to safe democracy. Trump comes with Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon and the most violent militias/ white supremacists/neo nazis / a racist police force. etc No rights for women/minorities or LBTQ.
Clear, informative statement / comment. Thanks.
Also thanks for the new expression -- apt in the context -- "mind bottling".
Yes, but the overarching religious belief in the US is Capitalism in which the journalistic faith in bothsidesism is nestled by virtue of the fact that the media are a business. And its opposite is Communism, a phantasm that must be vanquished at all cost. This is the Manicheanism of our time. Any steps taken to lessen Capitalism's harshness are met by cries of "first step to Communism." But what happens when the populace lose faith? We are a country with 800-900 billionaires and who knows how many hundred-millionaires, while at the same time almost 40% cannot come up with $400 in an emergency and more than 60% are living paycheck to paycheck. In that situation, the illusion of a real "contest" that's neck-to-neck becomes even more of a necessity. That will make readers come back for more. Bothsidesism may be a faith of its own, but I wouldn't discount the profit motive. After all, the how-to-cover orders come from the editors-in-chief.
The fate of Judas for taking those thirty pieces of silver is the ignored price of Capitalism's harshness.
As humans, we instinctively think in dualisms: yes-no, good-bad, for-against. I wonder if our cognitive inclinations are connected to our physiognomy. We are, after all, a bisymmetric species. If we had evolved from a starfish-like creature, would our cognitive inclinations be pentagonal?
Pete, I just read A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains and he talks about how nematodes (bilaterians like us) learned to steer and the logic is very binary. Same basic algorithm as a Roomba vacuum cleaner. It is a long and very dense book, but you can get this stuff in Youtube interviews.
Thanks Laura. I will follow up on this. I've also been following the work of Iain McGilchrist. Fascinating.
I'm not a science type, more liberal artsy and read it with one of my book clubs, but I saw the value of it -- if you read about the bio and background of the author, it is especially impressive.