Monday, September 26, 2016

What's All This About Asymmetry?

Scholars and the blogosphere are getting excited about asymmetry - and you should too -- because this is the key to reforming standards of political journalism in the U.S., the UK, and any country with a free press that bends over backwards to appear unbiased by tracking down every negative story at the expense of context and true fairness - to readers, fairness to the subjects.
Asymmetric Politics is a new book from Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins on this topic. More to come on that.
Washington Monthly has a shout out to Jay Rosen's blog piece on the subject.
See Why Asymmetry Matters.
As you read, keep in mind the seminal theory of the Six Points and related pages Beyond the Pale, Key Takeaways and Both Sides Do It
As noted in the Six Points the two groups in society who hold the power to change the dangerous direction of American politics are the journalists, who need to modify (really replace) the current standards, and moderate Republicans, who need to take the chance to threaten to form a rump group to leave their caucus in order to weaken the Tea Party scorched earth tactics.
If you read all of these posts and the arguments make sense to you,  Congratulations! You have just been thoroughly brainwashed. Kidding! But really, that's was the Times editors seem to be saying in their recent News Analysis of the Clinton twitterstorm. All liberals apparently, who did not vote for Bernie think alike and wait for commands from their leader, Hillary. That would mean the Bernie Bros believe whatever their leader tells them. If these people do not think for themselves, how did they decide between Bernie and Hillary in the first place.

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