Ummm...Unclear on the Concept?

In this Editor and Publisher interview about at SFGate.com, there is some pretty clear evidence of lack of clue:

4. Is the Internet news audience becoming fragmented by political ideology? Why and what's the long-term impact? Will this affect print newspapers in any way?

VK: We've undoubtedly lost some of our audience to Web sites that specialize in politically tinted news. Not that it hurts us that much, but it makes political polarization even worse if people only read the opinions they already know they're going to agree with.

A lot of readers don't believe there's such a thing as journalistic objectivity and seek out news sources according to politics. During the Iraq war, some readers from outside our market area wrote to thank us for being an antidote to the TV networks' pro-war coverage, and I'd have to write back and say thanks, but as a news Web site we don't take sides. We reflect San Francisco's attitudes with colorful liberal columnists like Mark Morford, but we have conservative columnists too.

I suspect that print newspapers are also losing readers to overtly political Web sites and places like Fox News.

Actually, this is interesting on a couple of levels. First, it is interesting that the editor being questioned apparently equates "politically tinted" with "not Leftist." I suppose that's not too surprising considering that this is coming from San Francisco. Still, it's disappointing that the editor - symptomatic of a large part of the media, apparently - does not understand that the audience is not leaving a pristine and politically untinted source to find opinions that they agree with already. Rather, they are trying to find more balance and a position more realistic. You see, when a person can say, with a presumably straight face:

During the Iraq war, some readers from outside our market area wrote to thank us for being an antidote to the TV networks' pro-war coverage, and I'd have to write back and say thanks, but as a news Web site we don't take sides.

That is a little scary, really. It means that he doesn't realize that they were taking sides, and people noticed. Some of those people happened to agree with them, but others (the ones leaving SFGate and the rest of the Lefty media for FoxNews and other more balanced sources) don't agree with them.

The second interesting bit in the answer to the question is this:

... it makes political polarization even worse if people only read the opinions they already know they're going to agree with.

I agree with this. It does make polarization worse if people only read the opinions that they already know that they are going to agree with. The question I have is, coupled with the other statements about people choosing other news sources, that deep down the editor knows that most people don't agree with his opinions, but he just doesn't care? That is certainly the way this came across to me.

Really, I think that the editor is dead wrong: there is no such thing as politically unbiased news about the US and its actions at home and abroad from almost any source. The reason why is, there is no disinterested source. We are the 500lb. gorilla: US actions and policies affect virtually every nation on Earth, and most of all affect the ruling classes and intellectualist elites of every nation on Earth. As a result, there are no disinterested parties when it comes to US policy and national events.

I think that it is still possible for Americans to be disinterested about much of the world - particularly those places who are neither like us nor our enemies (sub-Saharan Africa comes to mind). But I'm not convinced that anyone can be disinterested about the US, because so large of a percentage of the world's population has a stake in American policy and actions.

Posted by Jeff at September 25, 2003 10:22 PM | Link Cosmos