And it’s important to remember that there are more “sides” than just liberal and conservative. Another really important distinction is between corporate owned/funded and non-profit journalism....
“If you’re not seeing what the other side has to say, then you’ll miss stuff that’s true and inconvenient. If you can’t confront information that’s inconvenient to you, then you’re not serious about the information,” he said. “Your opinions are not informed. They are ignorant. If you don’t encounter information that makes you say, ‘Huh, maybe I was wrong about that’ — if you never think that to yourself — you’re not doing it right.”
And it’s important to remember that there are more “sides” than just liberal and conservative. Another really important distinction is between corporate owned/funded and non-profit journalism. Another is between short, visual newsbite news (news as entertainment, as some call it) and long form, written news.
A good generalization of the author’s point is that you’ll be better informed if you make an effort to learn about current events and the world around you from a diversity of sources. (Of course, this is not to say that all news sources are legitimately worth your time, but that’s another soapbox.)
Although Trump will depart the white house, he will still be a major voice in various media outlets, so it's interesting to hear why the right wing new media have moved increasingly towards...
Although Trump will depart the white house, he will still be a major voice in various media outlets, so it's interesting to hear why the right wing new media have moved increasingly towards "alternative facts."
“I didn’t understand that journalism is supposed to portray reality,” [says founder of NewsBusters]
The Examiner was the first place where Sheffield says he saw the kind of standards that differentiate “actual media and reporting institutions” — which may have inherent or even conscious bias — from right-wing websites for which partisan bias is the north star, the guiding principle.
“Truth for conservative journalists is anything that harms ‘the left.’ It doesn’t even have to be a fact,” he wrote. “I eventually realized that most people who run right-dominated media outlets see it as their DUTY to be unfair and to favor Republicans because doing so would somehow counteract perceived liberal bias.”
It's not that they think anything about it. It's that in general, the facts tend to contradict what they feel is reality. This makes it ironic that a conservative thought leaders would say snappy...
most conservatives think the purpose of journalism is to wage partisan political warfare
It's not that they think anything about it. It's that in general, the facts tend to contradict what they feel is reality. This makes it ironic that a conservative thought leaders would say snappy one-liners like "Facts don't care about your feelings." They aren't thinking about it as much as they are trying to intuit reality. The common result of this through history is that in general a fact-based approach will contradict many conclusions you arrive to in this way. The overly simple way I would put it is on the right facts conform to your feelings, on the left feelings conform to the facts. To me, at least, this explains why you'll generally see conservatives trying to browbeat facts to match their opinions, and liberals/progressives trying to explain their seemingly "touchy feely" ideas with existing facts that led them to their position.
I understand why you've made this observation, but I would question the veracity of such broad epistemological claims. A lot of my opinions "derive from facts" in the sense that I hesitate to say...
The overly simple way I would put it is on the right facts conform to your feelings, on the left feelings conform to the facts. You'll generally see conservatives trying to browbeat facts to match their opinions, and liberals/progressives trying to explain their seemingly "touchy feely" ideas with existing facts that led them to their position.
I understand why you've made this observation, but I would question the veracity of such broad epistemological claims. A lot of my opinions "derive from facts" in the sense that I hesitate to say things about the world that I can't substantiate through extant literature, but I think this has a lot more to do with my interest in academic verifiability than my political worldview itself. I am pretty confident in saying that I developed those two aspects of my identity independently from one another; certainly one came first, and it wasn't academia.
Plenty of my supposedly informed opinions derive from base feelings, mostly some derivation of "I don't like experiencing or witnessing unhappiness." I do all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify the extravagancies of my lifestyle; to maintain some theory about socioeconomics or power structures I've subscribed to; to get out of holding myself accountable for a grievance I've committed. I reject perspectives I don't like, dismissing them as coming from a place of bad faith. I sometimes take astrological readings seriously, despite knowing better, but only when it suits me. The truth is that I just don't care about reality as much as my conscious self would like to think. I find it difficult to believe that others who share my ideals are somehow free from this affliction.
That's sort of the power of ideology. Once you're on one side or another, you're sort of how you'll be. The main thing I'm talking about is after you're established yourself in a niche. I'm not...
I find it difficult to believe that others who share my ideals are somehow free from this affliction.
That's sort of the power of ideology. Once you're on one side or another, you're sort of how you'll be. The main thing I'm talking about is after you're established yourself in a niche.
I'm not trying to imply one side is more rational than the other, and I'm mostly basing my observations on the differences between the sides of American discourse, rather than the stuff you listed that is a lot of the stuff everybody has in common.
And it’s important to remember that there are more “sides” than just liberal and conservative. Another really important distinction is between corporate owned/funded and non-profit journalism. Another is between short, visual newsbite news (news as entertainment, as some call it) and long form, written news.
A good generalization of the author’s point is that you’ll be better informed if you make an effort to learn about current events and the world around you from a diversity of sources. (Of course, this is not to say that all news sources are legitimately worth your time, but that’s another soapbox.)
Although Trump will depart the white house, he will still be a major voice in various media outlets, so it's interesting to hear why the right wing new media have moved increasingly towards "alternative facts."
It's not that they think anything about it. It's that in general, the facts tend to contradict what they feel is reality. This makes it ironic that a conservative thought leaders would say snappy one-liners like "Facts don't care about your feelings." They aren't thinking about it as much as they are trying to intuit reality. The common result of this through history is that in general a fact-based approach will contradict many conclusions you arrive to in this way. The overly simple way I would put it is on the right facts conform to your feelings, on the left feelings conform to the facts. To me, at least, this explains why you'll generally see conservatives trying to browbeat facts to match their opinions, and liberals/progressives trying to explain their seemingly "touchy feely" ideas with existing facts that led them to their position.
I understand why you've made this observation, but I would question the veracity of such broad epistemological claims. A lot of my opinions "derive from facts" in the sense that I hesitate to say things about the world that I can't substantiate through extant literature, but I think this has a lot more to do with my interest in academic verifiability than my political worldview itself. I am pretty confident in saying that I developed those two aspects of my identity independently from one another; certainly one came first, and it wasn't academia.
Plenty of my supposedly informed opinions derive from base feelings, mostly some derivation of "I don't like experiencing or witnessing unhappiness." I do all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify the extravagancies of my lifestyle; to maintain some theory about socioeconomics or power structures I've subscribed to; to get out of holding myself accountable for a grievance I've committed. I reject perspectives I don't like, dismissing them as coming from a place of bad faith. I sometimes take astrological readings seriously, despite knowing better, but only when it suits me. The truth is that I just don't care about reality as much as my conscious self would like to think. I find it difficult to believe that others who share my ideals are somehow free from this affliction.
That's sort of the power of ideology. Once you're on one side or another, you're sort of how you'll be. The main thing I'm talking about is after you're established yourself in a niche.
I'm not trying to imply one side is more rational than the other, and I'm mostly basing my observations on the differences between the sides of American discourse, rather than the stuff you listed that is a lot of the stuff everybody has in common.