Thursday, December 30, 2004

What is un biased?

I came across this quote from Andrew O'hehir's new book about the New York Times recent reporting scandals, which defines cleverly what is often (falsely) considered inpartiality as "a point of perpetual, semi-neutral waffledom, halfway across the infinitesimal distance between Joe Lieberman and John McCain." Lately it seems a news organization acts rampantly biased in the style of a Fox News and still disingenuously claim to be unbiased, or it hides behind a tradition of respectability like "the paper of record" does while reporting based on their own skewed sense of what is impartial. (For instance, Howell Raines' Times relentless pursuit of the Whitewater non-scandal). A paper like the Times can hide its clear partiality behinds its relatively small newspaper font and stately masthead, but neutrality is not achieved merely by trying to appear neutral.

No comments: