{"id":141,"date":"2009-09-22T07:54:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-22T07:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/quote-of-the-day.html"},"modified":"2009-09-22T07:54:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-22T07:54:00","slug":"quote-of-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/quote-of-the-day.html","title":{"rendered":"Quote of the day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;In this post-journalistic world, the model for all national debate becomes the trial, where adversaries face off, representing opposing points of view. We accept the harshness of this process because the consequences in a courtroom are so stark; trials are about assigning guilt or responsibility for harm. There is very little wiggle room in such a confrontation, very little room for compromise&#8211;only innocence or degrees of guilt or responsibility. But isn&#8217;t this model unduly harsh for political debate? Isn&#8217;t there, in fact, middle ground in most public disputes? Isn&#8217;t the art of politics finding that middle ground, weighing the public good against factional priorities? Without journalism, the public good is viewed only through a partisan lens, and politics becomes blood sport.<\/p>\n<p>Television loves this, because it is dramatic. Confrontation is all. And given the fragmentation of news on the Internet and on cable television, Americans increasingly choose to listen only to their own side of the argument, to bloggers and commentators who reinforce their convictions and paint the world only in acceptable, comfortable colors. Bloggers like Richmond and Sexton, and TV hosts like Hannity, preach only to the choir. Consumers of such &#8220;news&#8221; become all the more entrenched in their prejudices, and ever more hostile to those who disagree. The other side is no longer the honorable opposition, maybe partly right; but rather always wrong, stupid, criminal, even downright evil.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: right\">&#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/doc\/200910\/media\">Mark Bowden<\/a>, &#8220;The Story Behind the Story,&#8221;which strikes me as being spot-on.<br \/>H\/T <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/crunchycon\/2009\/09\/media-bias-and-gotcha-journali.html\">Rod Dreher<\/a>. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;In this post-journalistic world, the model for all national debate becomes the trial, where adversaries face off, representing opposing points of view. We accept the harshness of this process because the consequences in a courtroom are so stark; trials are about assigning guilt or responsibility for harm. There is very little wiggle room in such&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-quote-of-the-day"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Quote of the day - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/quote-of-the-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Quote of the day - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;In this post-journalistic world, the model for all national debate becomes the trial, where adversaries face off, representing opposing points of view. We accept the harshness of this process because the consequences in a courtroom are so stark; trials are about assigning guilt or responsibility for harm. There is very little wiggle room in such&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/quote-of-the-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-22T07:54:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Quote of the day - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/quote-of-the-day.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Quote of the day - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","og_description":"&#8220;In this post-journalistic world, the model for all national debate becomes the trial, where adversaries face off, representing opposing points of view. 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