Pointlessly browsing through the increasingly Twitterized landscape of Substack, ran across an article by Douglas Rushkoff discussing the REAL media analyzers, Jerry Mander and Neal Postman. Rushkoff was interviewing a fellow Media Literacy prof about how they train people to look critically at media. I had to subscribe to get the podcast, so I paid the $5 and started listening. Soon it was clear that they were blaspheming Mander and Postman. For Rushkoff, media literacy means learning to love Big Sibling. All the examples of bias were right-wing and Fox, and all the examples of fairness and objectivity were MSNBC.
At one point the prof mentioned a simple factual event that was happening in NYC at the time of the interview. NYC was having some floods from excessive rain. She said “Okay, this is a real problem, and it’s probably going to get worse.”
The first part of the sentence was factual. The second part was propaganda, serving the hedge funds and corporations who run the environmental movement. She was unable to pry her mind out of the propaganda and stick with the simple facts.
This is FAKE literacy, exactly the same sort of rot we get from the official “fact checkers”.
I unsubscribed immediately.
The good part: These folks are so blind to their own biases that they can’t even USE their knowledge to persuade. The bias blasts you away immediately. Smart con artists know what bias looks like, and hold back the obvious slant until the sucker is hooked.
= = = = =
Later, a perfect contrast. Greg Conti, a prof at Princeton, writes about the downfall of prestige universities. He STRICTLY APPLIES the Fairness Doctrine, carefully separating bias on both sides from facts. He starts with one unfortunate fact: The prestige universities are hedge funds. They have infinite Fuck You Money, and they will outlast all of their critics.
Here’s a perfect Fairness Doctrine sentence:
= = = = = START QUOTE:
Acknowledging a few exceptions among conservative commentators and public officials, we can still say that universities are to Republicans what guns are to Democrats: an issue they are certain is at the root of great evils, but about which they face a massive knowledge gap that hampers their ability to do anything effective, even within the limited space our legal order allows.
= = = = = END QUOTE.
On the dot. Repoofs totally misunderstand tenure. They think tenure is meant to create “open debate” but actually promotes laziness. Bizarrely false. Tenure is meant to create rigid orthodoxy but actually promotes fanatically hard work to serve the orthodoxy. The Dem misunderstanding of guns needs no introduction.
Polistra's Mill 