Slanted
: Glenn Reynolds argues that more media input — from weblogs, web papers, and such — will straighten out slanted coverage:
It was easier to maintain slanted coverage when people had fewer choices: Now the threat of losing readers and viewers
2 responses to “Slanted”
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“Fewer media outlets (and monopoly media outlets) have resulted in an effort, sometimes stilted, not to be slanted; it led to expectations (often raised too high) of objectivity for they were the only games in town and they didn’t want to offend or exclude; they wanted size.”
hmmmm, no. that’s not what happens. Objectivity is not the result, majoritarianism is the result. It is not possible for a dominant media outlet to satisfy all views, it optimizes its audience, and defends its stance as being balanced or objective as a way to refute contrary views. It attempts to define truth and objectivity as being the majority view. That slant, the majority view, circularly reinforces itself and morphs from factual truth to transcendent truth, from “itsina” to “pravda”.
It may seem messy and contentious but objectivity is an emergent property of diversity rather than an attribute of any single entity. -
More fact-checking and feedback from conservatives and libertarians in Small Media make it harder for those in Big Media to continue to claim that their liberal slant is actually objectivity. Therefore, Big Media outlets will have to either admit their biases, or become more centrist in the name of objectivity. I don’t know, but I think its unlikely that the NYT, the network newscasts or CNN will just come out and admit that they have a liberal bias. It might be more honest, and more fun if they did, but its more likely they will try to tone down the liberal slant a bit in order to maintain their position of power and prestige, and to reach the widest possible audience. If the NYT for instance just admitted that its a partisan, liberal Democratic paper, I think it would be great. But, it’ll never happen, because then they’d have to give up all that pious, self-aggrandizing “Paper of Record” and “All the News thats fit to Print” crap. Hence, Big Media will react by being (slightly)less slanted whie all the gleefully slanted, more tabloidy stuff will come from Small Media.
