Oh, please. This is debatable -- being gay isn't a "lifestyle" -- by definition.
I know the position I hold, but my position is debatable.
As an ink-stained wretch myself, I must remind all that every special interest bitches about every story in the news that does not merely repeat-parrot-do honor to their views on controversial subjects.
I just get tired of it. And, by now, anyone who expects any news story -- any! -- to provide more than a gloss of the issues is just ... I don't know what.
No personal offense intended, Geoffrey. But general-circulation newspapers synthesize views -- they do not now, nor ever have they ever reported The Truth!
For the record, I do not believe that journalists should report "The Truth". I do believe, however, that when a person or group makes a statement for the record that contains factual inaccuracies, part of the reporter's task it to inform readers that these are such. Perhaps not in the interview per se, but certainly in the body of the story. For example, when reporting a story on the Bush tax cuts of 2001-2002, in the face of innumerable claims by Republican supporters that the cuts were aimed at the middle class, reporters should not say "but Democrats claim otherwise". They should say, "the bill in question actually shifts the tax burden upon the middle class, giving the bulk of the cuts the the wealthy." Why? Because it is a fact. Not "truth", or even "TRUTH", but just a fact that is verifiable.
Further up, in comments here, he writes:
You wish. :-)
American newspaper readership is in decline because, as faulty as it is, it still takes too much trouble for most people, these days, to be bothered to r-e-a-d and t-h-i-n-k. Yer hope is misplaced, I'm afraid.
I also count the realization that modern journalism is out for profit, above all else, about equal to adults' realization that Geo. Washington actually did not chop down a cherry tree, lie about it, then, admit it. The detached, objective press was a myth and it is a myth.
The Pentagon Papers, Woodward and Bernstein, and the rest are remembered because they are historical aberrations! Not because they represent some earlier standard -- because if it ever existed, it was fleeting -- but it never really existed.
The first paragraph is the kind of elitist BS I think is killing newspapers in particular and, combined with the very real pursuit of the almighty dollar, journalism in general. Americans are not stupid, or afraid to think. There are, of course, people who are afraid of thought; there are people who are afraid of having their comfortable ideological bubbles pricked by the pins of actual facts. There are people who have never engaged with politics, and find the whole mess rather unseemly and distant from their lives. There are people who are so focused on their families and careers that they care very little for the world outside their own sphere of (very narrow, almost myopic) interest. This does not mean the American public, as a general rule, are either stupid or apathetic. The majority of Americans are well-educated, thoughtful, publicly engaged on one level or another, and have views that range from mildly firm to ideologically bedrock on any number of issues. Whenever journalists become "surprised" by one story or another (my favorite from the past ten years was the "surprise" of journalists at the wild success and popularity of the Mars rover stories from ten years ago or so; imagine the public being enchanted with the exploration of another planet!) I have to laugh because the "surprise" is based on the notion that the American people are stupid, and when they, en masse, demonstrate they are not stupid, there just seems to be no explanation for it.
Specifically related to the issue in the second linked post above, ER claims certain things are "debatable". Well, that may be true. In fact, however, the position taken by opponents of the Hononegah HS GSA is factually inaccurate in the terms in which it is presented by those opponent. It isn't "false", or "FALSE" (as opposed to "TRUE"). It is just - wrong. Period. Being gay or lesbian is simply not inherently more unhealthy than being straight. The expressed "concern" is a cover for bigotry, plain and simple. As everyone knows this to be the case, it might be nice if the journalist in question did the following:
- accurately quote the person who represented the opposition;
- proceed to make clear to readers that the concerns expressed by opponents of the GSA were factually inaccurate without placing any moral or ethical judgment upon the person who put forth these views
- proceed to quote the views of the student who supports GSA, as well as parents who support the GSA; as the GSA passed the School Board it might be thought "fair" to make sure people understood this isn't "parents versus students" in some kind of even fight, but the result of considered debate and back-and-forth between any number of individuals and groups
These steps would inform the public that opponents of the GSA are actually misinformed in their claims for opposing such a group, giving supporters more information for future encounters with them. As opponents and complainers about any number of issues tend to be the ones who shout and carry on the most and the loudest, it might give the quiet supporters information to address alleged "concerns" as they come up.
Every time I hear a journalist tell a non-journalist that we do not understand what it is they really do, I have to smile, because we know quite well what it is they do. They take information concerning events and occurrences and organize and present to the public a semi-coherent representation of these events (school board meetings, a Presidential speech) and occurrences (a traffic accident, a homicide) for the public. Somewhere along the way, the notion that in so doing, journalists have a responsibility to the public to present accurate (as opposed to truthful) information got lost. This is another reason why I do not like the idea of Truth; it is a distraction, a nonsequitur used to distract people from the central point of the debate about the ever-sinking quality of American journalism (a note to ER - give a listen to the BBC, or read the Jerusalem Post, or the English language edition of Le Monde or Le Figaro for an example of what I am talking about).
