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defrogSo as you may know, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg upset a lot of liberals by hiring Kevin Williamson (the conservative pundit, not the guy who spawned the Scream movie franchise) – and then he upset a lot of conservatives by dropping Williamson, supposedly as a result of said liberal outrage.
And look – I have something bloggable to blog now!
1. Unsurprisingly, conservatives like Erik Erickson are using this to fuel their cute little conspiracy theories about how liberals want to silence conservative voices forever so they can have a monopoly on the public square.
Which is both melodramatic and just stupid.
In the first place, no one owes Williamson or anyone else a paid job to express any opinion of any kind – firing or not hiring Williamson is not suppression of speech. Second, media companies get to pick and choose who gets to speak on their platform. That’s how this works. It’s how Williamson got the Atlantic gig in the first place, until Goldberg realized he wasn’t kidding about hanging women who get abortions. And third, Williamson is established enough that he should have no problem getting work at Fox News, Breitbart or any other media outlet that welcomes his opinions – they’ll probably do it just to spite Jeffrey Goldberg. Indeed, while I was editing this, Commentary magazine announced it will publish Williamson’s next article.
So yeah, his voice will be heard just fine.
2. Erickson has a lot of nerve to complain about alleged liberal media monopolies when conservatives literally dominate the talk radio market, Fox News is the highest-rated cable TV news channel in the country and Sinclair Broadcast Media – the biggest owner of local TV stations – is instructing those stations to run exclusively conservative commentaries and special packages.
3. It’s hard to believe Erickson cares about media companies like The Atlantic giving equal access to conservative voices when Fox News, Breitbart and other conservative media outlets don’t do the same for liberal commentators.
4. This does raise a point – to what extent are media companies obliged to feature a diversity of viewpoints?
Legally, of course, they’re not obligated at all. The closest we’ve had to that is the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine, which wasn’t a law so much as a policy that could result in a fine or having your broadcast license revoked, although the FCC rarely did either. That policy was dropped in 1987, and of course only applied to broadcasters. There’s never been any legal requirement for other media to provide diversity of viewpoints.
5. Which raises another question – SHOULD they be required legally to feature a diversity of op/ed viewpoints?
Personally, my answer is ‘no’, provided that there’s no shortage of media channels for different voices to be heard. Put another way, diversity of voices should come from the totality of the media landscape, not from each individual newspaper, broadcast channel or whatever. If the media landscape can’t support that, then by all means we need to look at that. But until then, I think it’s better to leave such decisions to editors, not the govt.
6. Many media outlets already choose to offer diverse voices – presumably from a sense of traditional ideals of journalistic objectivity, fairness, and the recognition that there are always at least two sides to a given issue, and intellectual debate requires both sides to be considered. Or it could be just to boost their circulation numbers – why sell subscriptions to Democrats OR Republicans when you can do both? Anyway, I assume this is why national outlets like NYT, WaPo and CNN do it.
7. Meanwhile, I’ve noticed that some people don't WANT a diversity of voices in a single publication or channel – in recent months, I’ve seen NYT, WaPo and CNN get hammered by liberals constantly for giving a platform to conservative pundits.
To be fair, we’re talking about those conservative pundits who trade in liberal conspiracy theories, climate change denial, xenophobia, Trump defense, various levels of white supremacy, and/or other topics that used to be a lot further out on the conservative fringe than they are now.
And herein lies the dilemma for media outlets keen to present both sides: what happens when one of those sides has an increasing tendency to spout toxic batshit – like, for example, women who have abortions should be hanged, or Democrats should be shot like Coyotes, or the solution to the immigration problem is to shoot a few immigrants at the border to make examples of them. The list goes on.
8. Personally, I don’t think batshit should be banned outright. I think it’s useful to know that people are saying these things and x number of people support what they said – better to keep them in the open where we can see them and criticize their views rather than sweep it under the rug and pretend these people don’t exist. On the other hand, as someone who makes editorial decisions for a living, I wouldn't want them on my website, either.
Anyway, as I said above, no media outlet owes them (or anyone) a soapbox and a microphone. And for the publications or channels who want to provide diverse views, they have every right to set editorial guidelines and standards, and they have the right to reject anyone who can’t meet them. If yr views are too extreme for mainstream media, well, maybe the problem is you.
Take it away,
This is dF
And look – I have something bloggable to blog now!
1. Unsurprisingly, conservatives like Erik Erickson are using this to fuel their cute little conspiracy theories about how liberals want to silence conservative voices forever so they can have a monopoly on the public square.
Which is both melodramatic and just stupid.
In the first place, no one owes Williamson or anyone else a paid job to express any opinion of any kind – firing or not hiring Williamson is not suppression of speech. Second, media companies get to pick and choose who gets to speak on their platform. That’s how this works. It’s how Williamson got the Atlantic gig in the first place, until Goldberg realized he wasn’t kidding about hanging women who get abortions. And third, Williamson is established enough that he should have no problem getting work at Fox News, Breitbart or any other media outlet that welcomes his opinions – they’ll probably do it just to spite Jeffrey Goldberg. Indeed, while I was editing this, Commentary magazine announced it will publish Williamson’s next article.
So yeah, his voice will be heard just fine.
2. Erickson has a lot of nerve to complain about alleged liberal media monopolies when conservatives literally dominate the talk radio market, Fox News is the highest-rated cable TV news channel in the country and Sinclair Broadcast Media – the biggest owner of local TV stations – is instructing those stations to run exclusively conservative commentaries and special packages.
3. It’s hard to believe Erickson cares about media companies like The Atlantic giving equal access to conservative voices when Fox News, Breitbart and other conservative media outlets don’t do the same for liberal commentators.
4. This does raise a point – to what extent are media companies obliged to feature a diversity of viewpoints?
Legally, of course, they’re not obligated at all. The closest we’ve had to that is the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine, which wasn’t a law so much as a policy that could result in a fine or having your broadcast license revoked, although the FCC rarely did either. That policy was dropped in 1987, and of course only applied to broadcasters. There’s never been any legal requirement for other media to provide diversity of viewpoints.
5. Which raises another question – SHOULD they be required legally to feature a diversity of op/ed viewpoints?
Personally, my answer is ‘no’, provided that there’s no shortage of media channels for different voices to be heard. Put another way, diversity of voices should come from the totality of the media landscape, not from each individual newspaper, broadcast channel or whatever. If the media landscape can’t support that, then by all means we need to look at that. But until then, I think it’s better to leave such decisions to editors, not the govt.
6. Many media outlets already choose to offer diverse voices – presumably from a sense of traditional ideals of journalistic objectivity, fairness, and the recognition that there are always at least two sides to a given issue, and intellectual debate requires both sides to be considered. Or it could be just to boost their circulation numbers – why sell subscriptions to Democrats OR Republicans when you can do both? Anyway, I assume this is why national outlets like NYT, WaPo and CNN do it.
7. Meanwhile, I’ve noticed that some people don't WANT a diversity of voices in a single publication or channel – in recent months, I’ve seen NYT, WaPo and CNN get hammered by liberals constantly for giving a platform to conservative pundits.
To be fair, we’re talking about those conservative pundits who trade in liberal conspiracy theories, climate change denial, xenophobia, Trump defense, various levels of white supremacy, and/or other topics that used to be a lot further out on the conservative fringe than they are now.
And herein lies the dilemma for media outlets keen to present both sides: what happens when one of those sides has an increasing tendency to spout toxic batshit – like, for example, women who have abortions should be hanged, or Democrats should be shot like Coyotes, or the solution to the immigration problem is to shoot a few immigrants at the border to make examples of them. The list goes on.
8. Personally, I don’t think batshit should be banned outright. I think it’s useful to know that people are saying these things and x number of people support what they said – better to keep them in the open where we can see them and criticize their views rather than sweep it under the rug and pretend these people don’t exist. On the other hand, as someone who makes editorial decisions for a living, I wouldn't want them on my website, either.
Anyway, as I said above, no media outlet owes them (or anyone) a soapbox and a microphone. And for the publications or channels who want to provide diverse views, they have every right to set editorial guidelines and standards, and they have the right to reject anyone who can’t meet them. If yr views are too extreme for mainstream media, well, maybe the problem is you.
Take it away,
This is dF
