Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

"But I don't understand why newspapers take editorial positions. Doesn't that contradict everything newspapers believe about the value of a neutral point of view?"

--Since when has the Globe, or for that matter, any newspaper, been neutral? The Globe's support for the left has always been as obvious as the Wall St. Journal's support for the right.

You might think of journalism as a bar room. Lined up at the bar are many three legged stools, some to the left, and some to the right. The legs of each stool are "objective reportage," "editorial perspective," and "advertising." Perched on each stool is a publisher. You can tease a lot of silliness out of this metaphor by imagining the length and shapes of the legs on each stool, the relative sobriety of the publishers, their perspectives and delivery... do they face the bartender and mumble or do they face the people at the tables in the bar room and speak clearly and audibly?

You might also think of journalism as a wooly caterpillar crushed by a military Humvee as he was crossing the road... but I like the three legged stool thing.

Based on what I learned reading history books I have always believed that there was a constant back and forth between newspapers being created to make money for printers and pushing a political agenda. Those are always the top two items that they are about - only the order changes. I assume that if a company has a major printing business on the side that money is the main goal and if they are "all about the news" than pushing a political agenda is the main goal. In any case, the idea of the news media being neutral is a myth so silly that I find it hard to believe that there are who adults actually believe it.

Neutral point of view is an idea that developed out of Journalism School in the last half-century and is at best problematic. While newspapers developed in part out of pamphlets which from the beginning had highly subjective views on politics and where the world should go.

The real idiocy of neutral point of view developed with broadcast media, where we've been lathered with bullshit supposedly without a political agenda, it's help degrade our politics by limiting debate and conversation, which is never neutral.