Posted on 02/09/2005 10:50:29 AM PST by srm913
No good can come from this column.
For me, that is. Or at least for virtual me -- my in-box.
Bias – The Issue – has become the great red herring of political argument.
But it's worse and more serious than just a distraction, albeit an obnoxious one. The omnipresent charge of bias has become an embedded obstacle to normal give and take about politics, culture and current events. The word-weapon "bias" is now a structural bar to communication and dialogue between people who don't belong to the same right-thinking affinity group.
I don’t mean to sound like a French semiotics professor, because this is real simple. "I think John Ashcroft is scary," she said. "Well, you're just biased," he said. Discussion over, though a pointless argument may ensue.
"I think rap music is evil," he said. "You're biased," she said. Case closed.
While we all aren't promiscuous bias-blamers, this is no caricature of what it's like for many people who are involved in politics, working at universities, journalists or just curious people who get into arguments for fun.
I guarantee that some percentage of readers by this point will already be sending me irate e-mails saying: (a) Of course Meyer is trying to rationalize away the bias issue because he works for CBS News and is a living breathing epitome of liberal bias, or; (b) Of course Meyer is trying to rationalize away the bias issue because he is a tool of MSM (mainstream media) and corporate pawn of the evil multinational, Viacom.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Filled with the expected rants about "tolerance" without even using the word. Impressive.
He certainly doesn't get it. I read the column through twice, and he could have boiled it all down to "because I say so." which would at least make sense.
I think it is fair to say that a network whose mission is to present the important news of the day is guilty of bias when it uses phony documents to do damage to a particular candidate just before the election. But, of course, I am biased.
Actually I thought it was a pretty good article. Even though I've found myself in disagreement with the author in the past.
I think this column is extraordinarily sophomoric and petty. He builds off some kernels of truth, but then heads into left field with it.
We all have bias. But I didn't hear him declare that CBS, or any other news source, is not objective, the sacred cow of journalism.
He announces that we all have bias, but then goes on to say that anyone who points that out is an ignoramus who "does not want to understand another perspective even out of curiosity. They just want to hear things they agree with and be able to dismiss all the rest. "
Petty.
I agree that we all bring perspective, or bias, to the way we view things. Some of those are perspectives are right and some of those are wrong (I'd bet the author would disagree with me on that). But we all would have been better served if he wrote a column on what he thinks the biases of CBS are, rather than denouncing anyone who cares to look closely at it.
Of course Meyer is trying to rationalize away the bias issue because he works for CBS News and is a living breathing epitome of liberal bias... That has my vote.
He sorta has a point. Bias doesn't affect the validity of an argument, whether is it right or wrong. Content is all that matters, whether the argument is put forth by Albert Einstein, Howard Dean, or a three-legged marmoset named Ralph.
Bias is only an issue when, for example, someone dishonestly claims to be an impartial distributor of information.
Bingo.
Nice tagline!
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