Tag: Both Sides Do It
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The Press Has A Dog In This Fight; “Both Sides Do It” Blinds Them To That Fact
Watching Jake Sherman (founder of the Punchbowl News newsletter) on MSNBC just now drives home the point: whatever talent Sherman might have as a journalist is totally undermined by his acceptance of “Both Sides Do It” brand thinking and journalism. The first thing “Both sides do it” does to any journalist thinking this way is […]
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The Debate America’s Having With Itself Is NOT Political, It’s Facts v Feelings
To judge from the way our news media has covered the story of what America’s going through right now, you’d think it was entirely political: Democrats want America to go one way – cos politics – while the Republicans want us to go another way – cos politics. “Both sides do it”, don’tcha see? Alas, […]
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The News Media’s Failure Of Imagination Is Killing Our Democracy
How long did it take the news media – a profession built in theory upon the collection of facts – to decide that a man who lied to them every single day was a liar? By lie number three, any reasonable person would have begun to see a pattern. By lie number ten, that pattern […]
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Q: In The Coming Election, What Is The “Republican Alternative”? A: There Isn’t One
Maybe if our news media didn’t insist on seeing EVERYTHING through a binary lens, we wouldn’t be in the deep trench we’re in where the alternatives are so stark. Per our news media, the world’s either “this way” or “that way”. The middle ground – a much desired thing called “bi-partisanship” – remains forever out […]
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If “Both Sides” Really Did “Do It”, Republicans Would Already Be Extinct
Republicans play to win. Democrats play to play. That’s always been the key difference between us. One side cares only about the results while the other thinks the process is equally important. Consequently, while Democrats insist on playing by the rules (even if it puts the rules in harm’s way) Republicans are the ones actively […]
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If Trump “Wins” The White House Again, It Will Mean Our Republic Is Already Dead
Our news media exists in a strange nether world where the Republican corruption from one story – their acceptance of the Big Lie – never laps over into a story about the very same corrupt Republicans running for office or “governing”. The press has a remarkable ability to turn from a story about Republicans visibly […]
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Skepticism Vs Cynicism Vs Joe Manchin
In theory, a journalist is supposed to bring a healthy dose of skepticism to everything they report. The questioning doubt nagging at them, the junkyard dog reluctance to trust anything until it proves itself worthy – that would be their skepticism at work if they had skepticism and if it was at work. Alas, in […]
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Not Every Issue Has Two Sides – Like The Question “Should American Democracy End?”
The “Both Sides Do It” brand of journalism – cynical all the way down to its mitochondria – gives all sides to a story equal weight because it refuses to judge anything, prizing “neutrality” above even the Truth. Pick a conflict between two people, two groups, two nations and both sides, BSDI journalism says, have […]