It’s about TIME.
For the past several months I have been receiving TIME magazine. The subscription originally started as a gift from someone unknown, with my last name spelled wrong, lasted for a year. When it came up for renewal, I stalled until the price came down to fifty cents a copy, a much more reasonable price for the quality of the magazine (I could have had another half year free if I had stalled about a month longer). I finally renewed, not because I admire the quality of the magazine but because, even though it is the “Canadian” edition (it has some Canadian advertising in it) it provides a good snapshot of Middle-American thinking.
On a different note, at least to start, I have read and am reading a series of books on how American news presents a biased content on foreign affairs.[1] Natural for sure, but it is also surprisingly vacant of critical analysis of what the Washington “sources” and the Washington “experts” are saying, with the same applied to Israeli sources and experts. In general the criticisms of American media representation can be divided into several categories. First is the lack of context: news is provided that catches the attention, but seldom if ever provides background information to indicate why that particular activity is occurring. Along with a lack of background is the lack of what could be called foreground analysis, a critical commentary or questioning of the validity of sources and the manner in which their information is worded. Another feature is the choice of language, choices that make Americans almost always the rational modern mind with the ‘other’, whomever they are, being the irrational, fanatical, backward mind. Finally is the tricky concept of balance: while writers try for balance, their choice of whom they speak with on both sides of the issue often destroys any true balance in the reporting.
Leading from the latter statement is the idea of objectivity, an ideal that truly cannot be achieved as the very choice of ‘facts’ will determine the outcome of the argument. No writer can avoid that, and no writer should pretend that they can. It would be better to acknowledge the limitations in all reporting and accept that balance-objectivity is very difficult to attain. It is the force of well-referenced argument that makes for the best critical writing, with the writer hopefully willing to accept a change in viewpoint as different ‘facts’ and ideas are presented.
Now let me tie this mini-thesis on biases in writing with the renewed TIME subscription. The current edition contains two articles on Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which demonstrate the above bias concerns.
