When - and why - did the US news media get the idea that impartiality meant finding two sides to every question and presenting both of them as equals? That feels like someone converted a rule of thumb, applicable to cases where there's real disagreement between reasonable people, into an iron law that primarily benefitted those that 99% of the readership would otherwise have considered whack-a-loons?
There's obviously risk in judging the border between reasonable disagreement and loony-tunes nonsense - the opinions of the richer/more elite/more hegemonic tend to look more "reasonable" than those of the poor/uneducated/stupid/minority.
But digging for a representative nutter in order to appear balanced? I'd say "only in America", but the practice seems a bit more widespread.
When - and why - did the US news media get the idea that impartiality meant finding two sides to every question and presenting both of them as equals? That feels like someone converted a rule of thumb, applicable to cases where there's real disagreement between reasonable people, into an iron law that primarily benefitted those that 99% of the readership would otherwise have considered whack-a-loons?
There's obviously risk in judging the border between reasonable disagreement and loony-tunes nonsense - the opinions of the richer/more elite/more hegemonic tend to look more "reasonable" than those of the poor/uneducated/stupid/minority.
But digging for a representative nutter in order to appear balanced? I'd say "only in America", but the practice seems a bit more widespread.