Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
And, if your response is, put out a rightist one of the same character, I think that begs the question. My demand for ethics should not be met with "well, then, drop your own ethics, and it'll be fair."
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It's an odd thing --- I would certainly want the Richmond Times-Dispatch to be more friendly to my candidates and my issues, but I don't think that there is an exact centerpoint of coverage at which I could declare it "fair." What determines fairness is not the writer's bias --- it's his ethics (the same ones that don't apply to Drudge or other new media, 'cause getting the story out there without judgment is their only job).
The right's present complaint about the media is not that it is often or even occassionally wrong, it's that it's "biased" --- that its story selection and emphasis is
always disfavorable to the sitting government. It sounds to me like the right is satisfied merely to point out bias in media, not solve it. That's so its constituency takes a huge credibility discount from what it's hearing from the media and (at least at the moment) a boost from credibility for government.
Ask not whether the media is biased; ask whether the story is wrong. Otherwise, it's the same "attack the messenger" problem you usually decry.
