Is “Balance” to Blame for Non-Arguments?
Jun 12th, 2008 by Micah Tillman | Start the Discussion |
Look at the last two “paragraphs” from this AP piece on Louisiana legislative happenings:
Also Wednesday, the House voted 94 to 3 for a bill that would let science teachers change how they teach evolution, cloning, global warming and other topics.
Supporters say the changes would promote critical thinking; opponents say the proposal is intended to add religion to science classes.
“Supporters say the changes would promote critical thinking; opponents say the proposal is intended to add religion to science classes.” And those two are incompatible how?
The latter constitutes a rebuttal of the former how?
Is that the best snippet of the debate the reporter could get? Or is that just all the debate amounts to?
Interesting how “objectivity” in reporting has morphed into “balance” in reporting which has become “just get a comment from both sides” in reporting. (Is this a shift from modernism to postmodernism, from rationalism to epistemo-agnosticism, from the ontology of Reason to the ontology of heteroglossia?)
And if it’s good enough for news — if that’s what you see every time you read a news story on some controversial image — maybe the belief that this He-Said-He-Said constitutes actual debate has seeped into everyone’s brains.
Combine that with the same style of “debate” which happens on radio and TV talk shows and in the Presidential Debates, and eventually everyone forgets what a real argument is.
Except me. I’m the only one who remembers. Me.
