Media balance

A controversial blog article of Jay Rosen on the “he said, she said” scheme of journalism.

Any good blogger, competing journalist or alert press critic can spot and publicize false balance and the lame acceptance of fact-free spin. Do users really want to be left helpless in sorting out who’s faking it more? The he said, she said form says they do, but I say decline has set in.

And Julian Sanchez makes some valid contributions:

We’re accustomed to calling the “argument from authority” a fallacy, but in fact, that’s what the vast majority of us have to go on most of the time. Provided you ensure that authority’s authority actually applies to the field in question, it’s as good a strategy as any. …

Obviously, when it comes to an argument between trained scientific specialists, they ought to ignore the consensus and deal directly with the argument on its merits. But most of us are not actually in any position to deal with the arguments on the merits. …Sometimes the arguments are such that the specialists can develop and summarize them to the point that an intelligent layman can evaluate them. But often… that’s just not the case.

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