Liberal? or Conservative?
The Bias Wars. This comes from the bible of publishing, Editor and Publisher. Good article for those office debates. But is anyone other than myself getting sick of these two labels: liberal and conservative?
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center, which appeared to uphold the notion of an ideological tilt in newsrooms — both print and broadcast — only added fuel to the fire. It suggested that self-described moderates dominate the newsroom, but liberals outnumber conservatives by a ratio of about 5-to-1 at larger print outlets and about 3-to-1 at local papers. National Public Radio ombudsman Jeffrey Dworkin commented that these findings are “likely to follow news organizations around for the rest of the political year like Marley’s ghost.”
Journalism veterans interviewed by E&P disagree about why an ideological schism exists. Some say fewer conservatives enter journalism because the profession offers modest financial rewards and promotes aggressive questioning of the establishment. As Tribune Media Services columnist Cal Thomas put it, “It’s just not the kind of thing conservatives do.” But others contend that conservatives feel unwelcome in today’s newsrooms because they contradict the “group think,” to quote one editor.
Just a snap response, John. Phew! Do I get tired of the L&C labels. If for no reason other than it’s abusive shorthand for flacks too lame to research or understand political and philosophic gradations.
In another frequent flier forum, I often spend time abusing Right Wing Republikans who are enamored of the “New Conservatism” label — when the appropriate label may as well be “Proto-Fascist”! I come from a family of Republican traditional conservatives. My personal politics are correctly labeled “Progressive” — most of the time. And I’m willing to differentiate those opinions — as I do, say, on illegal aliens.
Conservatism has a great history in North America, especially on environmental issues. I worked like hell to get a bottle bill passed in my state of birth and our major ally was a Republican conservative state senator. My kin up in the Great White North mostly belong to the oldest political party in Canada, the Progressive Conservatives. Not a misnomer.
In that forum mentioned above, as a day-to-day experience, it’s Progressives and Conservatives who care the most about historic accuracy, [in fact] an understanding of historic processes and how we got to where we are — and have a sincere distaste for hypocrisy.
Too often, the “Liberals” are just quoting the DNC website [or similar] and the New “Conservatives” are stuck repeating ancient code words to support bigoted or elitist crap that goes back to Attila the Hun — or Rove and Wolfowitz . It was, after all, Republikans who came up with the acronym RINO for Republicans In Name Only.
I’m reminded of this book – http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp?ITEM_ID=1617 – which made me wonder exactly how polarised have we made the concepts of conservative and liberal? I think it’s because people are too likely to bundle the concepts with Democrat and Republican, Activist and Hardliner, and a range of stances that in their own right sometimes don’t even belong in teh equation (take the last two, for instance).
It’s human nature to use stereotypes and simple definitions to understand a more complex system, so I’m not surprised that we’re abusing those two political and social denominations so much. The question is whether there is an active move to educate the public to read beyond the pigeon-holing.
If the shoe fits!
Thinking about the question, further on, what’s wrong with the convention used in most other industrial nations? Left and Right?
It admits to gradations of difference within each. The terms are as all-encompassing as one would wish; still, allowing focus on any issue minus the narrow[er] and ambiguous “liberal” and “conservative”.
I think we need to all be reading this book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805073396/qid=1092866907/sr=ka-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-5608831-3223215
I find it ironic that this “conservative” administration has increased the deficit like no other. Really fiscally conservative, huh?