{"id":11028,"date":"2015-09-18T03:33:51","date_gmt":"2015-09-18T03:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11028"},"modified":"2015-09-18T03:33:51","modified_gmt":"2015-09-18T03:33:51","slug":"mainstream-media-becomes-a-four-letter-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11028","title":{"rendered":"‘Mainstream media’ becomes a four-letter word"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"mainstream<\/a><\/p>\n

My galaxy of friends, acquaintances and professional colleagues\u00a0runs across an enormous political spectrum.<\/p>\n

They range in ideology from avowed Marxists to borderline John Birch Society members.<\/p>\n

I cherish them all.<\/p>\n

My wife and I caught up this week with one of our longtime friends, someone we met when we moved from Portland, Ore., to the Texas Gulf Coast more than three decades ago.<\/p>\n

She reminded me of her right-wing views, which she acknowledges run counter to those with whom she used to work in print journalism. I guess she was referring to me as one of those lefties.<\/p>\n

Then she expressed her frustration with what she called the “mainstream media.” She suggested that those who believe as she does no longer have a place where she can get the new without being offended by what she described as “liberal bias.”<\/p>\n

I was taken aback a bit by her observation.<\/p>\n

My first reaction was to remind her that the “mainstream media” also includes a number of conservative sources. Fox News? It’s as mainstream as, say, CNN or the New York Times — the two media outlets my friend alluded to when she threw out the “mainstream media” label.<\/p>\n

But eventually, during our brief visit, we came to agree on one important element about media of all stripes: Broadcast media in particular\u00a0hardly ever deliver merely the “news” without adding commentary, punditry and opinion representing someone’s point of view.<\/p>\n

Political coverage? It is full of analysis about who’s up and who’s down and why.<\/p>\n

As we enter the next political season that will result in the election of a new president, I think it’s important to take hold of the idea that “mainstream media” isn’t just a supposedly liberal phenomenon.<\/p>\n

My friend is an intelligent and well-educated woman. She worked for many years seeking to inform the public about events of the day. She was a pro and she succeeded famously in keeping her own political bias away from the news she was reporting.<\/p>\n

I didn’t say this to her, as time was short and we had a lot of catching up to do, but I’ve long acknowledged by own bias. I lean left. My friend\u00a0referred to herself as an “extreme conservative.”<\/p>\n

Perhaps there’s hope that we can get past the vast chasm that divides Americans these days — if only all of us recognize within ourselves that we all carry bias, which isn’t just a malady that afflicts those on the other side.<\/p>\n

As for her inability to get the “news” the way she prefers it, there are\u00a0plenty of outlets that are suited to her own bias.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My galaxy of friends, acquaintances and professional colleagues\u00a0runs across an enormous political spectrum. They range in ideology from avowed Marxists to borderline John Birch Society members. I cherish them all. My wife and I caught up this week with one of our longtime friends, someone we met when we moved from Portland, Ore., to the … Continue reading ‘Mainstream media’ becomes a four-letter word<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1043,5484,1788,2858,3287,5483],"class_list":["post-11028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-news","tag-cnn","tag-election-season","tag-fox-news","tag-mainstream-media","tag-new-york-times","tag-political-bias"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11030,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11028\/revisions\/11030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}