Pair Conservative Journalists With Liberal Journalists

Of course we all know that two heads are better than one..

but also, in my opinion,

it makes sense to pair a reporter who is more conservative

with a reporter who is more liberal

to go out and cover assignments together.

It can serve as a check-and-balance coverage-technique

which may bring more balance politically
to the end reporting-product.

Two liberals or two conservatives working together,

while they may get along better,

is a recipe for disaster waiting to happen

in the context of ‘balanced’ coverage.

Implemented effectively,

pairing a liberal reporter with a conservative reporter

can also better ensure that their subjects/sources are more at ease,

if they feel like they can identify politically/socially/culturally

with at least one of the reporters covering the story.

To expand more upon this concept,

let me point out that we are shifting towards

a paradigm of transparency in the journalism field.

One example of this is how many journalists
state their political inclinations on their Facebook profile.

The era of pretending to have no opinion or hiding your opinion

has crumbled.

It’s actually more objective, truthful, and honest to state your bias

(as well as the limitations of your perspective) to your reader.

Hiding your opinion was a practice that wasn’t motivated by objectivity,

but rather for business reasons.

You could’t always state your opinion

because newspapers don’t want to lose subscriptions

(which makes sense).

However,

as readership shifts to websites

that viewers don’t pay subscription fees for,

you don’t really have to worry about losing subscriptions.

You just have to worry about getting hits and selling ads.

In this scenario, it can actually make sense

to make more provocative statements.

However,

this can result in a dangerous descent into sensationalism,

which of course is wrong for objective news coverage.

We can combat the inherent subjectivity of this newfound transparency

by pairing reporters with divergent opinions to cover stories.

The web has shifted us from a no-opinion-nihilistic model

to a pro-opinion-free-marketplace-of-ideas model

in which almost every opinion is represented

or stated by someone, somewhere.

Given this reality,

the progressive thing to do, in my opinion,

is to start pairing conservative reporters with liberal reporters.

Of course,

the old left/right liberal/conservative model of the political spectrum

is over-simplified and has many limitations.

If you want to better know and identify

where you fall on the political spectrum,

there is a wonderfully constructed test available at:

http://politicalcompass.org/test

I would suggest you first read the analysis, however, as well as the FAQ:

http://politicalcompass.org/analysis2

http://politicalcompass.org/faq

In the model there are more like 4 to 5 political orientations.

There are left-libertarians, right-libertarians,

left-authoritarians, right-authoritarians,

and arguably centrists.

Therefore,

when covering assignments, it makes sense to pair polar opposites

with each other as opposed to just “left/right” counterparts.

Or more specifically,

it makes sense to pair a left-libertarian with a right-authoritarian,

or a left-authoritarian with a right-libertarian.

But to do that you must first know where you are on the spectrum.

Now, don’t get me wrong,

this test is not without its limitations and is certainly not failproof,

but it represents a step in the right direction

for better understanding the complexity of the political spectrum

in a simple, easy-to-understand, and straight-forward model.

To put it simply, there are too kinds of control,

political (social) and economic (business) control.

Traditional left-right politics
usually only refers to economic policy/philosophy

and fails to take into account the added dimension

of whether one supports strong/weak state control

over people’s social/political/cultural behavior.

Obviously you have to have some authoritarian state control

to protect people’s rights and to prevent people from killing each other,

but too much state control over people’s behavior equates to fascism,

just as too much state control over the economy equates to communism.

Having no state control over business or people’s behavior

(right-libertarianism) equates to anarcho-capitalism.

Whereas right-authoritarianism can equate to a “corporate police-state”

(ahem) or neoliberalism.

Now I know what some of you are thinking,

you don’t want to be identified politically because you think

it will damage your perceived integrity

or that it will make it too easy for the Fourth Reich

to murder or imprison you into a forced labor camp.

If this is your sentiment then you are living in fear.

Fear has consumed your soul and very being to the point to where

you will never live up to your full potential or live freely

as a true individual.

In case you haven’t noticed, the truth is coming out.

Secrets are becoming harder and harder to keep.

Society is moving towards becoming

more open, more honest, and more transparent.

As well as more tolerant.

Moreover,

the natural tendency for most people is to associate

with other people who just reinforce
their previously held preconceptions, misconceptions, and biases.

This is not the proper way/path, however,

for the educated anthropologist or journalist.

The proper way is to force yourself to associate with people

who actively challenge and complement the limitations

of your biased perspective.

While there may be argument and conflict in this process,

it ultimately becomes a valuable learning experience

for all those involved.

Everybody knows something.

I don’t care if your a lawyer or a janitor,

your perspective has value and deserves to be heard and represented

by others.

Think of it this way,

often times an editor who was never even at an event

or who never even met your subjects,
will butcher your final story to conform to his

or the audiences politics.

What if, however, you bypassed the editor completely,

and sent two professional journalists with complimentary perspectives

to cover a story/subject/event?

If these two journalists are able to reach a consensus on the truth,

no matter how hard it is for people to accept,

then that adds to the overall legitimacy of the story

without the need for an editor to “politically correct” and butcher

the end product of your cooperative efforts.

Moreover,

say you are a subject or a business,

and two diametrically opposed journalists come out

to interview/question you (who’s biases you know)

instead of just one journalist (who’s bias you don’t know),

are you as the subject or business going to feel more trusting or secure?

Are you more likely to feel like you can actually trust journalists

as a whole as well as the journalistic process as a whole?

People are cynical these days, people don’t trust journalists.

Conservatives don’t trust us, liberals don’t trust us.

Fuck, I don’t even trust us.

Journalism is supposed to represent

honesty, truth, and integrity, but it fails. Many times over.

And we know it.

Some of the most dishonest, two-faced, childish people

I have ever met in my life have been journalists

(though PR people and politicians are often notably worse).

How is the public supposed to trust journalists if we can’t even trust
ourselves?

Am I more likely to trust you as a subject if I know what you’re thinking?

Or am I more likely to trust you if you just nod-smile-and-patronize me

only to go and possibly write a hack-job about me?

Dishonesty is destroying our society.

Nobody trust each other anymore.

This is arguably causing people to hate and fight each other more

instead of causing people to help each other.

If you are afraid of being identified politically,

you are living in the past.

It’s true that many old white conservative men

(who are from a completely different time and culture)

still control American politics as well as the American journalism industry,

because many of them still hold a majority of the positions of authority
in both government and businesses.

Old white conservative men, however,

only represent a small part of the holistic complex multiplicity

of American and global society.

Their days of monopolization of positions of authority are numbered

and many of them know it.

More than half of us are women,

almost a third of us in America are minorities,

and more than a third of us in America are working class.

Sadly this composition of our society

is not anywhere near to being adequately represented

in government offices or in business management/ownership.

Congress is composed of mostly white upper and upper-middle class people

who represent only a small demographic of American society.

It used to be you had to have money (and power) to get elected.

Now you can campaign at a cost of zero on Youtube.

See what I’m saying? Times are changing.

The old way of the old guard’s days are numbered.

And we know it. Most of us, at least.

I will leave you with three juicy bits of philosophy.

The first is an excerpt my friend posted to a Myspace bulletin.

The second is a link to a short philosophical essay

written by a young Hunter S. Thompson in 1955.

The third is a quote.

Hope you enjoy.

1) Freedom From Fear

An excerpt from the Freedom From Fear speech by Burmese nonviolent
freedom fighter Aung Sang Suu Kyi which I felt like posting:

“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts
those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who
are subject to it. Most Burmese are familiar with the four a-gati, the
four kinds of corruption. Chanda-gati, corruption induced by desire,
is deviation from the right path in pursuit of bribes or for the sake
of those one loves. Dosa-gati is taking the wrong path to spite those
against whom one bears ill will, and moga-gati is aberration due to
ignorance. But perhaps the worst of the four is bhaya-gati, for not
only does bhaya, fear, stifle and slowly destroy all sense of right
and wrong, it so often lies at the root of the other three kinds of
corruption. Just as chanda-gati, when not the result of sheer avarice,
can be caused by fear of want or fear of losing the goodwill of those
one loves, so fear of being surpassed, humiliated or injured in some
way can provide the impetus for ill will. And it would be difficult to
dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth
unfettered by fear. With so close a relationship between fear and
corruption it is little wonder that in any society where fear is rife
corruption in all forms becomes deeply entrenched.”

...Four causes of corruption: Desire, Anger, Ignorance, and Fear. And
they all begin with Fear.

2) “Security” by Hunter S. Thompson (1955)

http://www.ram.org/contrib/security.html

3) “To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.”

~Elbert Hubbard

US author (1856 – 1915)

by Patrick Yen at Fri Jan 25 19:49:26 UTC 2008 (ed. Mar 12 2008) Louisville, KY, United States | Bookmark this | Digg this |