There’s a hot new term doing the rounds among media critics: “sanewashing.” The term itself actually isn’t new, and it wasn’t born in media-criticism circles, per se; according to Urban Dictionary, it was coined in 2020 on a Reddit page for neoliberals (which Linda Kinstler wrote about recently for CJR), and meant “attempting to downplay […]
Seems like a problem springing from the press’s bias towards neutrality, or how sometimes a politician is objectively wrong but the press treats them with kid gloves for fear of being accused of unfairness.
They can’t print Trump’s entire 3 minute rant, and they’re scared to characterize it as meandering or incoherent, even if that’s the best description. So, they print a single line from his rant and provide their own context.
Towards the appearance of neutrality, you mean. When person A says “2+2=4” and person B says “2+2=5”, “neutrality” is not reporting some kind of false compromise at 4 1/2, but instead factually reporting that person A is correct and person B is wrong!
Stop oppressing me with your woke math and shit! It’s my deeply held belief that two plus two equals five!
2+2=5 is my heritage!
We jest about bad math being called heritage, but remember that, sadly, 3/5 = 1 was unironically a huge part of their heritage.
For large values of 2 it can even approach 6.
You’re very good at conservative math.
Heh well conservatives are irrational, but then again. Sometimes numbers are too. But 2.999999999999 + 2.9999999999 is pretty darn close to 3.
2+2 is actually 5 I’ve read it in a book with a bunch of numbers as a title. its basic knowledge, just like: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength
You’re confusing neutrality with objectivity.
Edit: Neutral (adjective): not helping or supporting either side in a conflict, disagreement, etc.
Are you a big enough baby to downvote because you don’t like what words mean? Neutrality and correctness are two different things. Objectivity does factor in what the facts are, neutrality doesn’t.
Perpetuating lies just because one side claims them is neither neutral nor objective!
Agreed. Their motivation is money, and there’s more money in keeping the election a neck & neck horse race, even if one of the horses is rabid, lame, and in every way unfit to run. They’ll downplay his blaring faults, and magnify any tiny fault they can find in his competition, just to keep the race “fair” - for ad revenue.
They also don’t like to get sued, and Orange Julius has a habit of suing anybody who offends him.
Too true, also what we call civility politics. I wouldn’t be surprised if corporate backers prefer it that way.