Two sides
July 15th, 2008Yep. This is me venting after having seen yet another talking-head TV debate between someone speaking common sense and someone talking gibberish. There is absolutely no way a person watching those kinds of “news” programs can learn a thing from two people blatantly contradicting each other. It requires that the viewer – essentially – do homework. They have to research the assertions made by both sides to see which one is credible. That used to be the journalists’ jobs.
You can’t have a holocaust survivor on a program sharing their story and then follow that with someone who denies the holocaust ever happened. Every sane person know that’s ludicrous but that’s what “balanced” news coverage is.
It seems to me that when someone says there are two sides to every story they are conceding that the truth can’t be known.
Or they want to sell twice as many books or fill up twice as much air time.
– Steve
Stumble it!
July 15th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I’ve pondered this situation on a number of occasions, and I think your cartoon really hits the nail on the head. By elevating extremist opinion to the forecourt of mainstream media, the most blatant of fictions can be legitimised and promoted. It distorts both the perception of reality, and the debate on the issues.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010726030451/http://www.indymedia.org/print.php3?article_id=3159 < I found that article very informative. It reminded me a lot of Baudrillard’s concept of the “hyper-real” simulacra; and 1984. In a world where nothing is knowable, facts are mutable, and the truth can mean whatever it is spun to mean, there can be no power to challenge existing oligarchies. Cognitive dissonance is a modern tool of oppression.