True journalism and the death of constructive debate

Our dear patriarch James also asked me contribute to his blog in his absence.

Because very little of what I write is worthy of his blog, and because it's been a difficult week, I'm re-posting something I wrote a couple of months ago:






















There’s an important distinction between journalism and punditry: real journalism attempts to be unbiased and impartial. Pundits, on the other hand, write or speak from a specific angle.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with punditry, in small doses and in the right context. Most blogs fall under this category, although there are a few I would describe as journalistic.

But let’s not confuse the two. Bill O’Reilly may have a degree in broadcast journalism, but he is not practicing journalism. Neither is Al Franken. Neither is Rush Limbaugh.

The ideologies these people spew are often mistaken for “news,” or even “journalism.” But they’re not. I’ll tell you why:

• Real journalists don’t demonize people who disagree with them while elevating those who do


• Real journalists don’t shout people down


• Real journalists don’t use inflammatory or biased language

Journalism is succumbing to pressures from all sides, but the worst trend that’s crippling the credibility of the institution is the increased movement toward journalists as pundits, especially on cable news shows. Nothing ruins a journalist’s objectivity quite like punditry.

Fox News comes under a lot of fire (and rightly so) for being biased and sensationalist, but the fact is that all the cable news networks present the news with a distinct slant. The problem is not limited to Fox. For every Rupert Murdoch, there’s a liberal equivalent. It’s blatant. It’s obscene. It’s everywhere.

Let me give you an example. During the 2004 election, CNN and ABC News would refer to Bush and Kerry in the same sentence as “Mr. Bush,” and “Senator Kerry.” One by his honorific, and one by the generic pre-nomial “Mister.” It was a very subtle way of discrediting one and elevating the other. Fox News, simultaneously, had it precisely the other way around: “Mr. Kerry,” and “President Bush.” Do you see how clever and subtle the difference is?

Most differences aren’t that subtle. Today, if you’re a conservative, there are countless conservative radio shows, talk shows, blogs, Web sites and publications that you can go to glean your news from. If you’re a liberal, there are countless explicitly liberal shows, publications, blogs, and Web sites as well. There’s no longer any perceived need for objective journalism, because people increasingly want to absorb “news” that reflects their personal beliefs and leanings.

I’d like to submit that this system is not working. It’s just leading to greater stratification and sectionalism within our collective societies. Feeding one’s intellect with only news and information that reflects one’s own partisan slant is not healthy or constructive. It leads to the kind of “debates” that we see televised daily on these cable news shows—debates that are not debates at all, but shouting matches between talking heads and pundits.

Here’s a prime example by two of the worst offenders.

These men aren’t talking to each other; they’re talking at each other. That’s all it is. This isn’t a debate. These are soliloquies.

For that matter, there’s a serious dearth of knowledge as to what constitutes constructive debate—or even constructive dialogue or discussion—whether in written or spoken form. Some very basic, common-sense rules are not being followed. For example:

• If you’re presenting your opinion about a contested or controversial issue, it is the purest folly to insult people who disagree with you, explicitly or implicitly. You will lose whatever chance you might have had to convince them of the truth of your position, and you’ll wind up preaching to the choir.


• Nicknames like “Democrap,” Repukelican,” “Lib-tard,” and other childish terms don’t help your case—they just alienate these groups entirely.


• Your “side” is not always right, just as the other “side” (liberals, conservatives, whatever you like) is not always wrong. Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken would be well served to learn this.


• Similarly, it’s important to remember that the other “side” is not comprised of evil people who want to see American/Britain/wherever fail. They usually genuinely think they’re doing the right thing. They won’t be impressed by this kind of rhetoric.

Divisive sectionalism within the “news” community has led us to an us-versus-them mentality that is entirely unhealthy. Dialogue, discussion and debate should be respectful and articulate, not inflammatory and divisive. I truly believe that the most important factor in any discussion or debate is the ability to put yourself into the shoes of whomever you’re disagreeing with. If you can’t understand why your opponent believes himself to be right, you might as well go home. We need a true understanding of why others believe what they do, or we will never be able to communicate.

This is why I feel so comfortable talking about one extremely difficult topic—abortion. I’ve been young, poor, unwed, pregnant and terrified, so I understand the dilemma. I’ve stood in the shoes of the countless girls who have to make the decision whether or not to get an abortion. And because I understand why a young woman might decide an abortion is the right thing to do, I am infinitely more prepared to discuss this issue with people who disagree with me. I can honestly say, “I know exactly why you believe this. I understand your reasoning perfectly and I pass no judgment—now hear the conclusion I came to and why I came to it.”

The moral of the story: Good debate, like good journalism, is free of inflammatory, offensive, or biased language. I’d like to see more of both: good debate and real unbiased journalism.


What, questions? How surprising.

But Ruthie: I like to get my news from newscasters who think like me. I don’t want some liberal/conservative injecting their opinions into my newscast!

Well, that’s your loss. Going to only one source for news is severely limiting your understanding of the world. As I’ve said, it’s important to understand why people disagree with you so you’ll be better able to discuss these issues with them in a respectful manner.

That sounds like political correctness. I dislike political correctness.

It’s not political correctness, it’s just good form. It’s common sense. If you alienate your audience by offending them or putting them off, you wind up preaching to the choir and convincing no one but yourself. I’m willing to bet that 99% of Rush Limbaugh’s listeners are conservative, precisely for this reason. He never has anything positive to say about liberals or Democrats, only derogatory remarks. If you switch it around, the same is true of Al Franken (who, delightfully enough, is running for Senate here in my home state). I see them as two sides of the same coin.

But what if I can’t find any unbiased news sources? What if none of them are objective?

True objectivity is impossible. Every journalist betrays his opinions when he writes. Even subtle and often unconscious word choices, like “hostage” vs. “detainee” betray a journalist’s true opinions. Many news organizations don't even operate under the pretense of objectivity anymore. The key is balance. If you understand all the sides of an issue—all the shades of gray and varying viewpoints—you’ll be better able to defend your own.

Thou Art The Ref

1. The Winger's Labours Lost

Fair DESDEMONA, daughter of Venetian senator BRABANTIO, hath skipped past the left-back and advanceth goalward.

Yet even as she approacheth the angle of the box, IAGO doth bring down DESDEMONA with a crude, two-footed lunge.

"Verily," cries IAGO, "I barely happened to nudge the lily-livered strumpet!"

Thou art unsure whether this venomous act of knavery occurred within the box, and thy assistant referee declaims that he was sore unsighted.

What shalt thou do?

a) Award a penalty unto the attacking team, and send forth IAGO unto an early bath?

b) Award a free-kick upon the box-edge, and issue IAGO a fulsome admonishment?

c) Smother the fair DESDEMONA, assail IAGO with thy blade and then slay thyself by thine own hand?

2. Much Ado About A Fair Challenge

OPHELIA and ROSENCRANTZ doth contest a fifty-fifty ball within the central circle. OPHELIA winneth the ball, leaving ROSENCRANTZ with an ugly gash upon his foreleg.

ROSENCRANTZ assails thee, crying "Thou art a dull, sheep-biting punion, sire! Thou needest glasses, thou blind bastard - may the worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul, thou mountain of mad flesh!"

In the meantime, play hath continued and lo! OPHELIA hast been bodychecked by HORATIO. A vexatious melee doth ensue.

What shalt thou do?

a) Inscribe the name of the whoreson mandrake ROSENCRANTZ in thine notebook, and adjudge the dropping of the ball?

b) Allow the play to continue anon, and issue ROSENCRANTZ a stern rebuke upon the exit of the ball from the field?

c) Send forth OPHELIA unto a nunnery, therein to be as chaste as ice, as pure as snow?

3. The Three Gentlemen of Midfield

While thine sight is distracted, thou doth hear a calamitous uproar from behind, and, turning, presently discover that MERCUTIO, kinsman of PRINCE ESCALUS, hath been struck an injurious blow and now bleedeth in sanguineous torrents.

Since it is plain that MERCUTIO hath not so wounded himself, the only possible culprits are TYBALT, cousin of JULIET, and ROMEO of the house of Montague. Thy assistant referee was, alas and alack, unsighted.

"Marry, I never touched the nondy fucker, sire!" quoth TYBALT.

"A plague on both your houses, thou dirty, hacking bastards!" cries MERCUTIO.

What shalt thou do?

a) Bring play to a most untimely halt, and allow the physick to attend the effuse of blood?

b) Send TYBALT unto the dressing room like a common dog, therein to ruminate upon his dastardly action?

c) Slay TYBALT, and flee unto exile?

Ye shalt find the answers in comments.

From the archives of Flying Rodent.

Football and the Second World War

Tom Finney, who played at every position across the forward line for England, in the postwar era was called up in 1942 to serve in the army (his photo is above). Finney was not unusual amongst footballers of his day- 98 went from Crystal Palace, 91 were called up from Wolverhampton Wanderers during the war, 76 players from Liverpool fought in the war and other future stars like Bill Nicholson of Tottenham Hotspur served in the war. Football within England was interrupted by war- the clubs were split into regional divisions and played each other, the FA Cup and other competitions stopped for the duration of the war and the England team ceased to play. Careers as notable as those of Stanley Matthews, Tommy Lawton, Finney himself, Bill Shankly and Don Howe all interrupted their careers to fight in the war. For many of them those careers became the lost years that they could never recover- like the Oxford Undergraduates who came up in 1939 only to complete their degrees in the late 1940s, these footballers spent their twenties fighting in conflict. English football also lost players in the war- Harry Goslin a England defender who played in unofficial internationals during the war was killed in 1943 in Italy (his picture is below), Billy Dean an Arsenal goalkeeper wrote home as he went to fight that he had fulfilled his ambition by playing for Arsenal, he was killed in 1942 on service with the Royal Navy.


Obviously the rest of society suffered as much if not more than football but football enables us to appreciate some of the costs that the Second World War brought to Britain- the echo of war lasts far longer than the war itself. For many clubs the war brought the end of a side that had prospered during the thirties- nowhere was this more true than at Arsenal where the side built by Chapman in the thirties and sustained by George Allison containing such famous names as Ted Drake and Alex James broke up during the war. Eight players from Arsenal were killed during the war- the war ended other players' careers as well though. Bill Shankly returned to find that Preston North End now considered him too old to utilise and thus started one of the great managerial careers in English football. It is interesting to wonder looking at the photo below of Bolton players going to war, how many of their careers were blighted by the experience.


The echoes of war in postwar football though were not merely a consequence of the absenses of those who were killed, the missing names on the teamsheets, or the absense of those who had spent their prime at Dunkirk and El Alamain, but also psychologically on those that remained. For Wilf Mannion fighting in Sicily and losing half his company effected him profoundly- for a while the Middlesborough winger found it hard to even play football again. The general effect of the second world war as studies in Scotland have found was to smooth out an underlining decline in suicide rates so the effect on footballers like Mannion fit into a general trend. For many men the war formed the background to their lives during peacetime- having broken up their careers and cost them their mates, the war became a defining event in their lives.

There is no question that the second world war was the right war to fight- but there were massive costs. Costs which ran through individual lives- the lives of footballers are interesting cases because for many of them their best proffessional years coincided with their military years- the costs though were greater in terms of the impact of war upon sensitive young men- giving them a numbness to death, like that Paul Fussel described in his study of the experience of the second world war. Just as with much of the rest of British history, the echoes of the second world war in football lasted long after the guns had stopped sounding.

Funerals -- Celebrations of Life

It seems that I have come to that time in my life when I am often a funeral participant. I hadn't been to a funeral in years it seemed, but, in the last year or so, I have had quite a few opportunities to be a mourner. With the exception of two very close long time friends, most of the departed were not close friends but my connection with them demanded a show of respect and an appearance at the funeral. Some of them were quite elderly and not well and the sorrow was tempered by the fact that they had led long satisfactory lives. On the other hand, some of them were the same age as I and this was sad for me, while some were considerably younger and this was indeed tragic.

It seems that certain things have changed at funerals since I last attended one. For example, there is usually a large photo of the departed displayed prominently. Sometimes it is a portrait of the person and sometimes a happy family group and often there are informal collages of photographs at the reception. The flower arrangements are simpler nowadays with many families requesting no flowers, but donations in lieu to the charity of one's choice.

But the innovation that I like best of all, is the PowerPoint musical slide-show presentation that is almost the norm now at funerals. True celebrations of a life, displayed for all of us to see what a fine life this person has led. Since I am an immigrant, I met most of these people as young adults or even middle-aged individuals. So I discover all these interesting things about their early lives that perhaps I didn't know before, that they had never told me. I love this part of the funeral and I am disappointed if there is none. The eulogies by friends seem to have become less formal, with funny stories being told so that there is joy in the atmosphere as well as regret. Now many people want to speak at funerals and sometimes they are very long. The funeral for my dear Hungarian friend, who died this past year, was two and a half hours long, since so many people spoke. There I found out he had been shot during the 1956 revolution, which I hadn't known previously, although I had known that he was part of it and escaped later.

Just over a year ago I gave the eulogy for a very close Scottish friend. It was a memorial service and since she had died at Christmas, it was held in early January. I wrote my eulogy and was terrified that I would break down and cry in the middle. However two days before I developed viral bronchitis and my voice almost disappeared. No one would agree to read the eulogy for me, so I was forced to croak away into the microphone and was concentrating so hard on speaking that I did not lose control until the last.

If you knew me, you would know that I am a micro-manager and always have to do everything myself with lots of double checking involved. So I keep thinking that I should prepare my own funeral celebration. I know which photograph I would like enlarged, a simple candid shot taken when I was about 50. It's my favourite photo of myself. I'm not photogenic at all, I fear. I have already asked a friend's son if he will play Amazing Grace on the bagpipes for me, but hopefully it will not be for a long time. I don't know much about PowerPoint but if I can learn blogging I can learn PowerPoint. So I'll have to start looking through my photos and borrow PowerPoint for Dummies from the library. After all, I want my mourners to enjoy my funeral presentation as much as I have appreciated the celebrations of life that I have attended lately.

The bagpiper is Jimmy Mitchell, from Texas, who plays Amazing Grace at funerals.
This is another early post from my blog.

Celebrities and Charities

Scarlett Johansson has recently been called in by former Vice-President Al Gore to help him promote his Live Earth day, this follows hot on the heels of an announcement that Miss Johansson, most famous for her acting and for being according to some the most attractive woman on the planet, was recently appointed to a role as ambassador for Oxfam in India. No doubt Miss Johansson will give Mr Gore's efforts to stop climate change (a matter I know of dispute within the readership of this blog, but that's a debate for another day) and the efforts to help the poor of the world, a touch of glamour and style that may tempt some more people to discharge their pockets in a beneficent gesture of charity.

There are a couple of obvious issues to do with this kind of celebrity endorsement of things- firstly it leads to an uncomfortable situation where celebrities are effectively sifting for us the charities that we should be interested in. But of course they have no more expertise in doing that than anyone else. Miss Johansson to her credit is a very good actress and in films like The Man who wasn't there, her performances create characters who are very interesting. But that doesn't make her an expert on development studies or environmental science- having said that many of our decisions in politics are taken upon an ignorant basis- for example many people in the 2008 election for the US Presidency will be considering Hillary Clinton's behaviour in the 1990s, Rudy Giulliani's divorces, John McCain's age and Mitt Romney's flip flopping as well as their positions on the levels of income tax over the next five years.

There is something though that I object to just as much going on here. Miss Johansson is a very impressive actress but she is also a very rich woman- as is for instance Bob 'Give us your f***ing money' Geldoff. I work on a budget of around spending ten pounds a day at most- if I give a fiver to a beggar or a fiver to a charity, that's half my day's budget gone. If Scarlett Johansson gives the same amount to a charity, that's a fraction of her income in an hour gone. When Geldoff and Johansson and others get up and start pontificating about the guilt of the rich West and how we should share resources- there is a temptation to ask them well why don't they give enough of their resources away so that they have to live like a normal person. Admonitions to sack cloth and ashes don't come well from those strutting in diamonds and furs!

But I think there is something also going on behind all these celebrity moves into advocacy for charitable groups. Celebrities as many people comment are cut off from society- football players who used to earn the wage of the average manual worker, now earn the average manual workers' lifetime income in a year- actors and actresses now are wealthier than you and I to an extent that even their wealthy predecessors in 20th Century Hollywood would have found remarkable. This isn't a complaint at all- but one of the interesting things about this is that of course it makes the recipients of this largesse feel both guilty and unjustified. Yes probably the charity endorsements are the products of publicity agents- but it also strikes me that when Bono or Bob or Angelina Jolie head off to Africa and say the West is disgustingly wealthy, lets help the Africans, what they are really also saying is that the distinctions between I Bob and you Gracchi are insignificant, we are both disgustingly rich and you should share my guilt and do something about Africa.

I should end this post by saying that lots of celebrities do a lot of good- but I do think its interesting to look at the way that this novel state- being a celebrity- interacts with the high profile use of charity work by many of them- it almost makes being a celebrity into the condition of being a modern saint- recently Angelina Jolie was described by Esquire as being the best woman in the world because of her charity work- I'm almost certain that if I had Miss Jolie's wealth I could give a lot away as well- and I'm almost certain as well that if I did that I wouldn't be the best man in the world either.

Keys to the Kingdom

Several years ago, whilst on a holiday to florida, I took my mum on a backstage visit to Walt Disney World. It was shockingly expensive (although not so bad now at $60), but for me it was worth every penny to see behind the mirror.

Along the way, we were allowed to pick up cards called "7 Guest service Guidelines" I reproduce them here.

-Be Happy...make eye contact and smile!

-Be like Sneezy...greet and welcome each and every guest.Spread the spirit of hospitality...It's contagious!

-Don't be Bashful...seek out Guest contact!

-Be like Doc...provide immediate service recovery!

-Don't be Grumpy...always display appropriate body language at all times!

-Be like Sleepy...create DREAMS and preserve the "MAGICAL" Guest experience!

-Don't be Dopey...think each and every Guest!

Little Chef take note.

(Crossposted from my Blog)