These Guys Sure Think The Way I Do

Boy, are they smart.

An article by Arnold Kling at TCS, May 27:

In Iraq, today's militia fights, terrorist attacks, and occasional outbreaks of mob violence are significant because they take place in the context of two larger wars. One is the war between the civilized world and radical Islam. The other is the war between the media elite and conservatives. However things turn out in Iraq, the relationship between the American people and the media is never going to be the same.

Christopher Lasch's thesis was that the media elite derives its self-image from the position articulated by Walter Lippman in the 1920's, which is that the general public is incompetent to evaluate political argument. It follows that the duty of the press is to supply an objective picture of reality. A news outlet must not be seen as participating in an equal conversation with its audience, but instead must be viewed as standing on a higher pedestal. To achieve this position, facts must be kept separate from opinion.

This distinction between facts and opinion is never as clearcut in practice as it might appear in theory. Lasch would have argued that people are best informed by an overall point of view that provides context for facts, rather than by an attempt to pretend that opinion can be filtered out of a story.

One could make a case that the clashes taking place in Iraq today have little bearing on that country's ultimate future. In the long run, whether Iraq is able to modernize or not, whether ethnic diversity divides the country or not, and whether democratic institutions take root or the country reverts to strongman rule all depend primarily on the internal dynamics of its people and culture. Meanwhile, here in the United States, the forty-years war between the media and conservative Republicans is reaching a climax....

See "I Don't Accept That".

(Thanks, Michael.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 05/29/04 07:40:58 AM
Categorized as Media.