If you haven't read H.D. Miller's work over at Travelling Shoes...

You should.

In fact, there are several folks up there in the blogroll who have been putting out tremendously informative writing that you just don't see in what passes as mainstream journalism. I think the biggest thing I have come to understand in the past three years or so is that what makes that mainstream so maddening is not the addle-pated inability of the professionals to admit even the teensiest bit of bias; nor is it the astounding lack of general, everyday knowledge, coupled with an almost psychotic level of self-importance.

What most annoys me is the conceit that journalistic "balance" demands that all events be treated as if they were the same. Like a bowling ball and a feather falling at the same velocity in a vacuum, I keep finding examples where two mightily disparate events or characters are treated as if they were two sides of a fair coin. In the vacuum of journalism, even the most bizarre, obscure, theory, if it is contradictory to someone else's view, is taken as being equivalent. For every story about an abundant good being done, the press seems hell-bent to find a counter-poise that refutes it. Regardless of how inane, or superficial, or ill-reasoned, or partisan, or idiotic it might be. In a vacuum, they both fall at the same rate.

Thus, what gets pushed off onto the newsracks and satellite feed is a legitimization of the marginal, as well as a deligitimization of common sense. It seems that for every story about the value of a democratic Middle East, we must be given a reminder that George Washington was a slave-holder. For every story about the use of military power, we must paralyze it with references to Viet Nam. For every reference to Semtex-clad teenagers, we must remember the Crusades. In the vacuum-free real world, we may know that under some circumstances such comparisons make sense, but we also know we would rather stand under a falling feather than a falling bowling ball.

Obviously, this isn't a startlingly original revelation, but it is one of the reasons why I put so little stock in what the Fourth Establishment pumps out. Maybe they've trained me a little too well--although I realize that the vast majority of people who work in the newsgathering business are smart and serious about their work, I counter that with the images of folks like the dissembling Jayson Blair and the vainglorious Howell Raines. In the vacuum, the good and the bad fall at the same rate.

As for the folks you read who cogitate and commentate online, at least you can tell the bowling balls from the feathers.
posted by Terry at 12:28:00 PM