Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

False Equivalence: The Ur-Document

James Fallows
Jan 12 2012, 6:56 PM ET

Over the months [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/10/false-equivalence-reaches-onionesque-heights-but-in-a-real-paper/246754/ ], and indeed through the decades [ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/02/why-americans-hate-the-media/5060/ ], I've mentioned how the mainstream press can be buffaloed if one party to a dispute says things that just aren't true. Every reflex teaches journalists that the only "fair" approach is to neutrally report "both sides" -- and to resist ever saying, "for the record, one side is just making things up." Thus we have the false equivalence problem [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/10/chronicles-of-false-equivalence-chapter-2-817/246667/ ]. "Professor Jones says that males differ from females in having both an X and a Y chromosome, as opposed to two Xs, but Mr. Smith says that such findings reflect a political agenda and also the motivation of funders." All views are equal, and a reporter remains "objective" just by serving up what each side says.*

Today the "public editor" of the New York Times, Arthur Brisbane, has asked in apparent earnestness whether the world's leading news organization should be a "truth vigilante [ http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/should-the-times-be-a-truth-vigilante/ (the post to which this is a reply)]." He begins this way:

I'm looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge "facts" that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.

It would be tempting to provide "input" in the form of a D'oh! slap to the forehead, a huffy "well now we see what the problem is!" email or Tweet, a stiff drink, and a suspicion that the NYT and the Onion have finally merged. Some of these things have indeed happened [ http://jimromenesko.com/2012/01/12/nyt-public-editors-inquiry/ ] (here's Brisbane's response [ http://jimromenesko.com/2012/01/12/nyt-public-editor-on-reaction-to-truth-vigilante-post/ ], and a wrapup from the Atlantic Wire [ http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2012/01/yes-new-york-times-should-definitely-be-truth-vigilante/47336/ ]). The most inspired response was an homage from Vanity Fair [ http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/01/Should-emVanity-Fairem-Being-a-Spelling-Vigilante ]. Hint: VF is seeking reader input on whether "words" should be spelled "correctly." Also, see the droll fake Twitter feed [ https://twitter.com/TimesPublicEdit ].

But -- no joke -- I'm going to look on the bright side. Apparently naive questions can often be the start of quite penetrating and profound explorations. Think of Yogi Berra; think of Peter Falk's "just one more thing.." throwaway queries on Colombo; think of children asking "Daddy, am I going to die?" or "Why is those people's skin a different color from mine?" Sometimes it's only the plainness of a non-sophisticated query that allows people to talk about issues that are usually taken for granted.

So I think Brisbane deserves credit rather than ridicule for raising this question. Let's hope that within the Times, and elsewhere, it's one more reason to focus attention on the difficult daily choices facing journalists trained to be "fair" and "objective" in the new political-infosphere terrain. (And, yes, I realize that these choices are difficult -- there's a whole book [ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0679758569 ] on the topic!)
__

* For an "it even happens at NPR [ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/10/why-npr-matters-long/65068/ ]" real-world example, consider a report last month [ http://www.npr.org/2011/12/27/144319863/congress-really-is-as-bad-as-you-think-scholars-say ] on what's gone wrong with Congress. It quoted Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, who with straight face mourned the unpredictability of today's politics: "Washington needs to stop adding confusion and more uncertainty to people's lives."

It didn't note that Rep. Cantor's main political function over the past year, and the main source of his tension with Speaker John Boehner, has been precisely to add "confusion and uncertainty" to politics, toward the end of overthrowing what he considers corrupt old bipartisan business-as-usual. During the debt-ceiling showdown, he was a major proponent [ http://www.salon.com/2011/06/23/eric_cantor_tax_hike_hissy_fit/ ] of risking a default if he didn't get the spending cuts he wanted. You can admire his brinkmanship or deplore it, but either way it deserves mention when he talks about "uncertainty." A "truth vigilante" would point it out.

[For the record: I've never been an NPR employee but over the years have appeared on various programs, in recent years Weekend All Things Considered.]

Copyright © 2012 by The Atlantic Monthly Group (emphasis in original)

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/01/false-equivalence-the-ur-document/251335/

---

(linked in):

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=70773978 (and any future following)

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63133615 and preceding and following; http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=70738440 and preceding and following; http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=70895930 and preceding (and any future following)


===


Into the Canon: De Tocqueville

Ta-Nehisi Coates
Jan 13 2012, 9:00 AM ET

I finished up Middlemarch [ http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/eliot/middle/ ] two days ago, and had a good debate about it on Twitter. Ultimately I found the book shockingly ambitious and ultimately disappointing. Those two notions are connected, and I'll have more on that later.

But next up in my pursuit of an invisible degree from the university without walls is De Tocqueville's Democracy In America [ http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/toc_indx.html ]. I don't want to say too much, for now, but this graff [ http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/preface.htm ] in the introduction struck me:

From the time when the exercise of the intellect became the source of strength and of wealth, it is impossible not to consider every addition to science, every fresh truth, and every new idea as a germ of power placed within the reach of the people. Poetry, eloquence, and memory, the grace of wit, the glow of imagination, the depth of thought, and all the gifts which are bestowed by Providence with an equal hand, turned to the advantage of the democracy; and even when they were in the possession of its adversaries they still served its cause by throwing into relief the natural greatness of man; its conquests spread, therefore, with those of civilization and knowledge, and literature became an arsenal where the poorest and the weakest could always find weapons to their hand.

The modernism evinced here, and the sense of inevitable progress, is an obvious target. And yet so much of this calls back to both Malcolm and Douglass's resolve to educate himself, to that old African-American sense that there is [something] covert and belligerent about the life of an autodidact, that to be ignorant is to do the work of one's enemies.

Tocqueville quotes the Puritans motives for enforcing public education:

Whereas," says the law, "Satan, the enemy of mankind, finds his strongest weapons in the ignorance of men, and whereas it is important that the wisdom of our fathers shall not remain buried in their tombs, and whereas the education of children is one of the prime concerns of the state, with the aid of the Lord...."

That reasoning is very, very familiar.

Copyright © 2012 by The Atlantic Monthly Group

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/01/into-the-canon-de-tocqueville/251368/ [with comments]


===


(linked in):

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=70890912 and following

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=65957527 and preceding and following; http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=27485225 and preceding and following

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=13088854 and preceding and following; http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=69271483 and preceding and following