On 15/03/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
Ok, but is this really true? I can't imagine minority views ever getting much airtime on mainstream American news?
It's not so much a case of "minority views" as "batshit views". Taking the LaRouche example --- it is not so much the insignicance of LaRouche that is important, to me, in the balance/neutrality debate, as it is the utter disconnection from reality. Dick Cheney isn't going to launch nukes against Iran tomorrow, and Lyndon LaRouche would certainly not be his strongest opponent were he to attempt to do so.
Sometimes, of the two main sides of any story, only one is indeed the truth.
(...)
This reminded me of an article I read the other week:
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2006/02/what_are_newspa.html
"Another stance explicitly held by most newspapers is demonstrated by the article above from Sunday's paper. Newspapers are against racist hate groups. Reporting on such groups assumes the perspective that their successes, like traffic deaths, are a Bad Thing to be reported as bad news. Articles like the one above include quotes from people at the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League not just to provide "balanced" comments from the other side, but to provide /corrective/ comments from the /right/ side."
Same theme, I guess.
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk