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It's not all debates that NPR wishes not to take sides on, but only
those between our major political parties and the sizeable portions of
the American public they bring into alignment with their declared
positions.
It's understandable, to me, that this would place a major news
organization --particularly one like NPR that is partially funded with
public money, and is not privately owned-- in a dilemma.
But it seems deplorable if all it takes to get NPR to become "neutral"
is for one of our political parties to declare that "Black is White,
and Up is Down."
Nor does it seem that "show" don't "tell" suffices to solve the
problem. It is true that a "showing" of how American courts and
treaties have considered this issue settled, until the Bushites
declared that "black is white," would enable the listener to understand
what has happened, and that Bush's declaration "We do not torture" was
false. But it does not really suffice as a solution because this
history cannot be recapitulated every time the issue of waterboarding
comes up.
Nor can people be trusted to understand the truth of the matter just by
describing the procedure. The judgments of history on
waterboarding represent experience and knowledge that individuals
simply cannot be expected to match. Recall the recent case of the
conservative talk radio guy who submitted himself to waterboarding,
convinced that it was NOT torture, only to be stunned and traumatized
by the experience and to declare that it "absolutely" WAS torture.
So NPR truly does have a dilemma, and no easy solutions available to
it. It can stick with "white is white," even if a powerful
political party says otherwise. Or it can be "neutral," because
the lies of that political party mean there is no "clear consensus" on
the issue (as that Mr. Duffy of NPR blandly and flabbily states).
The trouble is, this "neutrality" isn't really all that neutral.
It DOES lend legitimacy to the side with an illegitimate
position.
It seems that "mainstream" news organizations --and by "mainstream" I
mean those who wish to appear to everyone not to be aligned with one
major party against another-- are indeed put into a difficult spot if,
as has happened lately, one of our political parties becomes dominated
by the lie, and its followers are easily persuaded by those lies.
Perhaps the solution would be for NPR to say, "waterboarding, which the
Bush administration declares is not torture but the rest of the world
says is torture." That would be a way of just "reporting" without
"taking sides."
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