The Persistent Myth of the Impartial Press, in the Nation and Even in Berkeley
In his blog today, Paul Krugman tackles a virus which has almost taken over the body politic, insidious creeping centrism. The whole piece is well worth reading, but here’s the money quote:
“We have a crisis in which the right is making insane demands, while the president and Democrats in Congress are bending over backward to be accommodating — offering plans that are all spending cuts and no taxes, plans that are far to the right of public opinion.
“So what do most news reports say? They portray it as a situation in which both sides are equally partisan, equally intransigent — because news reports always do that. And we have influential pundits calling out for a new centrist party, a new centrist president, to get us away from the evils of partisanship.”
Professor Krugman, now almost the only intelligent voice allowed to be heard in the corporate press, spent most of his early career in academic economics, so it’s no wonder that he’s shocked at what’s going on in national politics and how the situation is being covered in the press. But sad to say, militant centrism is not all that new. It’s just gotten much, much worse lately.
-more-