In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Being Fair Doesn’t Mean Being Balanced

Lauren

Yes, yes, yes.

I do not accept an argument based on who made it. I accept an argument based on how well it was made. I tend to loathe almost all political speeches, from either “team,” for their ornamental rhetoric and simplistic formulations. I long for real debate, with actual claims that can be supported, demonstrated through evidence, and clear avoidance of fallacies. You aren’t going to see alot of that among politicians.

[Being a feminist] means that I challenge, whenever I can, clear examples of sexist assumptions, policies, actions, or statements that malign women. I don’t think women are better than men. I think women, in fact, can act as basely and dishonorably as men. That is part of being a feminist. I challenge any idealizations of women, whether the culturally familiar icon of the mournful mother or the chaste and modest young woman. I don’t think that women, as Victorian mythology would have it, are more naturally moral or empathetic than men are. I think women are humans, which means, they are as wonderful and as awful as men are.

…I am not a critic of : W, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Tom Delay, Public Choice economists, uber-conservative Christians or evangelicals, etc. because I am a liberal if what you mean by that is I am rooting for my team and categorically hate all conservatives or Republicans. I am not capriciously criticizing them. I do not think they are worse than any Democrat, or liberal.

I also don’t think that I have to prove that statement by including a criticism of a Democrat or liberal everytime that I critize one of people from the category I outlined above. If Tom Delay is convicted or Scooter Libby is convicted, I don’t have to remind myself of the countless corrupt Democrats. That is distracting from the point, isn’t it?

I don’t have to prove that I am a critical, thoughtful thinker by being “fair and balanced,” if that means: match a criticism of a conservative with a criticism of a liberal. That is a very simplistic and arbitrary way to prove subtle thinking.

Edited slightly by yours truly.

Although I enjoy the new dissenting comments at Feministe, I’m tired of Jill and I being expected to perform linguistic backflips in order to appease this audience or that. Many thanks to Aspazia for reflecting my thoughts on this subject.

21 thoughts on Being Fair Doesn’t Mean Being Balanced

  2. This also applies to the idea that journalists have to give equal weight to each side of a debate. “Some say, others differ” journalism. The idea is that, even if one side is presenting a clear, consistent, compelling argument, and the other side is babbling incoherent, it’s “biased” to present them as anything but equally valid.

    (Funnily enough, it’s usually our camp that gets painted as “relativists” or “post-modernists” that don’t believe that there’s any way to evalutate anything as good or bad, right or wrong, true or false. The irony of that is that, whenever we do, we get shouted down as “biased” or “propagandizing” or whatever.)

  5. The idea is that, even if one side is presenting a clear, consistent, compelling argument, and the other side is babbling incoherent, it’s “biased” to present them as anything but equally valid.

    It IS biased to present them otherwise. It is the reader’s task to decide who is clear-headed and rational and who is a gibbering idiot, not the writer’s.

  6. A blog is one’s personal mouthpiece; bloggers have no obligation to be “fair and balanced”. That said, I disagree with KnifeGhost above who would extend this concept to journalism generally. Most bloggers are akin to opinion journalists who present news along with their personal spin on it. On the other hand, purveyors of hard news should at least report while trying to maintain some veneer of impartiality, or by presenting others who can offer an opposing view.

  7. It IS biased to present them otherwise. It is the reader’s task to decide who is clear-headed and rational and who is a gibbering idiot, not the writer’s.

    True, if what we’re talking about is news reporting. But when it comes to analysis, debate and discussion, when we try to sort out what the raw facts of the news mean to us, then it’s the writers job to take an interpretive view that will almost certainly be in opposition to someone else’s view.

    Anytime someone begins to take a stand on what the facts mean (and let’s face it, that’s where the really important and interesting stuff is), the world is immediately divided into camps: those who think that particular someone is right, and those who think that particular someone is wrong. Which then creates a whole new tier of those who now have to decide which analysis is clear-headed and which is gibbering idiocy.

    This chain used to end with the big media distributing the analysis to us, and then we just individually and passively sorted it out for ourselves. Now, we do that, and take it a step further, by commenting on it ourselves in very public forums like this one. Which creates a never-ending series of commentary and analysis, and then analysis of the analysis, and so on.

    Some find this wearying and counterproductive. I think it’s brilliant. But it requires more discipline. You have to force yourself to not just read the stuff you agree with, since that has become so much easier to do when there are millions of sites offering analysis of the facts.

  8. I tend to agree with Jon C, I feel anyone who is open about their particular bias is free to espouse their views however they wish. For an MSM-type organization that claims objectivity it is important to try to give an honest reading of all sides, regardless of your personal feelings. Let the reader decide.

    I would also differentiate between cases like Libby and DeLay. I have seen some interesting rhetorical contortions trying to compare Libby to other perjury cases, this can be a bit ridiculous. But in the case of DeLay it is part of the story to point out that what he is accused of has been common practice in both parties for some time now. I don’t like the bastard at all, but it appears from the charges he is getting railroaded.

  9. Although I enjoy the new dissenting comments at Feministe, I’m tired of Jill and I being expected to perform linguistic backflips in order to appease this audience or that.

    Oh, like you libs don’t like appeasement …

    Ba-rump-BUMP!

    PS – Dance, monkey, dance.

  12. It’s your blog, you present your own opinions. You don’t have to be fair to anyone else’s argument – let them get their own blog already.

  13. Certainly journalists should be impartial, but that inpartiality should hold within in the right to point out logical inconsistencies, misleading languages, and flat-out _lies_.

    The lies are the main point of my argument. Journalists tend to take claims (of certain groups) at face value, and don’t give any kind of evaluation of their factual basis. Part of that has to do with the fact that news organizations just don’t have the staff for that, which is laregely because it isn’t valued enough in head office for them to give a large fact-checking budget, blah blah, whatever.

    But when a person or group makes outrageous and demonstrably false claims, should journalists not point that out?

  14. But when a person or group makes outrageous and demonstrably false claims, should journalists not point that out?

    There’s a world of difference between “outrageous” and “demonstronably false”. The latter suggests something that is obvious, or at least objectively determinable. The former is in the eye of the beholder

  15. There is also a wide range of opinion about what constitutes demonstrably false. If you ask me, it is demonstrably false that gun control laws prevent violence. Intelligent people of good faith disagree.

    Aside from that, journalists are not generally competent to accurately report the actual positions held by various groups, as anyone who has ever been interviewed for an even slightly controversial story can tell you. It would be the height of folly to expect them to actually sort out truth claims.

  16. I _certainly_ don’t expect them to sort out truth claims. But if Joe McCarthy says Edward R. Murrow was a member of the ACLU, and that the ACLU was listed by the FBI a subversive group, one shouldn’t have to perform, as Lauren said, verbal backflips to remind people that Joe Kennedy maybe said some dubious things once before stating flatly that Edward R. Murrow is not and has never been a member of the ACLU, and that the FBI does not and has never listed the ACLU as a subversive group.

    Of course not everyone agrees on what is or is not demonstrably false, and fucking of course intelligent people of good faith can disagree. But it frustrates me when everybody screams “BIAS” when a journalist makes a claim that makes a certain party (in the sense of a person, group, whatever) look bad, even when the claims are factually true.

  17. Who says you have to perform linguistic backflips? Just be yourself and they will still come to read!Shoot, I don’t have to agree with you to read your viewpoint! Sometimes I scratch my head and think what isd she thinking? Sometimes I agree, first time I’ve said anything here, but now I’ve done it! Dropped out of lurker mode! By the way, I too am a Laff-a lot blogger! (I hope you’ve heard of our fair city referred to by that name!)

  18. But I don’t trust them to know whether Murrow was in the ACLU or not. That is, in fact, sorting out a truth claim – and the record of even the most prestigious media at reporting basic facts is quite poor.

    More to the point, I don’t want there to be an expectation that it is the media that will perform this sorting. That expectation leads to situations of cozy bias – where “we don’t really need to run down the claims of unpopular group such-and-so, we can just report them as being unsupported.”

    I agree that it is frustrating when people call “bias” on simple reporting of facts. However, that a claim is “factually true” ends up being a question of opinion so often that I am very leery of assuming that the reporting I am getting is accurate – I’d be a lot happier with accurate transcriptions of what people actually said, and I’ll sort out the claims myself.

  19. I’d be a lot happier with accurate transcriptions of what people actually said, and I’ll sort out the claims myself.

    How?

    You’ve already said that you don’t trust the media or the government to arbitrate the truth of fact-based claims, and the reasons you’ve set forth for their potential bias would seem to apply to consumer-watchdog groups and the like, so…how?

  20. Once again, I’m not saying we should _expect_ the media to sort out truth claims. I’m just saying we shouldn’t attack them for taking it upon themselves. Either you don’t understand my point, or I don’t understand yours.

    I trust the media probably even less than you do. You’re welcome and encouraged to sort out truth claims for yourself. But, again, I don’t think the media should be attacked for doing it, especially when it’s quite often pundits or people offering opinions doing it.

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