The Bias toward Balance

We hear a lot these days about our political polarization in the U.S., often as if just calling our society "polarized" expresses a self-evident, simple truth, not so much due to the actions of individuals as it was the result of various forces including the changes in the ways news reporting is generated and distributed as technology has advanced over recent decades.

But that so-called "polarization" is taken as accepted wisdom and used as the starting point for many an essay on politics. Like false balance and false equivalence, belief in "polarization" does not violate traditional norms of journalism when used as the premise for a political article (despite defying simple logic).

The traditional norm in the U.S is. to refer to Republicans and Democrats as two equal and opposite sides. Both parties have political agendas with respect to political issues. Politicians in both parties have strengths and weaknesses. Both parties have proposals for laws to advance their agendas.

This standard view of the political world means that if a group of viewers likes to watch Fox News for information, then the opposite of Fox News would have to be an opposing cable channel , MSNBC. Any claims that MSNBC and Fox News are qualitatively different with starkly divergent professional standards would violate the tradition of forced balance.

And so we see how an idealistic, but outdated standard that equates fairness and objectivity with balance translates into attempts at balance that are forced. False statements are given weight equal to true statements. Purveyors of falsehoods do not deserve to be treated with credibility. Credibility granted to habitual liars makes them stronger than the truthful because honest reporters waste valuable time and energy fact-checking the lies of habitual liars. When a liar makes a baseless claim without a shred of evidence because his followers believe in a fundamental "truth" regardless of lack of supporting facts, the honest reporter may not have the evidence to disprove the lie or even to prove that no such evidence exists. Thus does mendacity trump truthfulness.

As an example, take "Smearing Robert Mueller - Sean Hannity and others are blaming the special counsel for one of the F.B.I.’s worst scandals. But there is no evidence to back up their charges."

Surprise, surprise.

As the judge who presided over the relevant trial, Nancy Gertner rebuts the allegations by Dershowitz, Hannity, and others to implicate Robert Mueller in the imprisonment of four men wrongfully convicted of murder. This pattern keeps being repeated. Hannity or some other "conservative" levels an accusation without regard to the truth. Someone who cares more about the truth (which makes that person a suspected "liberal" or, just as bad, a suspected "Democrat"), writes a detailed essay to rebut the reckless claims. After which, Dershowitz or Hannity  doubles down on the discredited accusation - in this case, Dershowitz's states that "absence of evidence is not conclusive evidence of absence". In other words, Dershowitz is happy to make serious accusations of wrongdoing whether or not the evidence exists, primarily because the accusations support a strongly held belief he maintains.

The accusation against Mueller falls into a repeated pattern that conservatives find works well for them. Level a single serious accusation against a person who stands in your way, like Robert Mueller. Whether or not the accusation is true, supported by facts,  or even relevant to the current issue (the integrity of the Mueller investigation), use that single accusation (which is really a distraction) to claim that the Mueller investigation is therefore discredited.

So, Mueller's exemplary professional career means nothing, but a single smear supports a cherished belief and that becomes enough evidence. Meanwhile, Trump, a man who constantly lies to gain advantage, is given credence by Team Trump.

Ultimately, the polarization in the U.S. is not between conservatives and liberals or Republicans and Democrats. The polarization is between those who constantly prevaricate (along with their ardent supporters) and those who respect the truth.