Posted by
Burorambo on Friday, October 05, 2007 10:01:16 AM
To find fair-and-balanced on your radio dial, look for it somewhere between your conversative talk radio station and National Public Radio, your liberal talk radio station.
Take the recently released biography of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, for example. According to Rush, Sean and Gordon, among others, the book is a must-read, a masterful homage to the benefits of conservative thought and values. The grandfather who raised him is cited as a strong, independent, honorable man, who embued in Justice Thomas the attitudes and skills that took him to his seat on the highest court in the land.
At the other end of my radio dial, NPR posts a review apparently written by Anita Hill's brother, who reports that the book portrays Thomas himself as a less than black sleezebag woman abuser biting the hand of affirmative action that fed him, and his grandfather as a tyranical child abuser.
Did they read the same book? Of course they did.
Fair and balanced reviews? Of course not.
Back in the day, when we listened to news and commentary, we were told basic facts and left to determine for ourselves the meaning and significance of events. Then, for a while, interpretation accompanied the facts, and we added a new word to our vocabulary: spin. Now, we get the interpretation, and a few selected facts that substantiate the interpretation. Sadly, the Cheshire Cat of reality has disappeared, leaving only his spin behind.
It is no longer good enough to program a single news station into your radio, read a single newspaper, or visit a single news web site, even though they all cover the same events. You have to read conservative news outlets, and balance what you get there with news from liberal outlets.
Unless, of course, you only want to hear what you already know.