WORTH THINKING ABOUT: DIVERGING FROM THE PARTY LINE
In a memoir of her days as a Washington Post journalist, Meg
Greenfield wrote:
"We in Washington have been moving in recent years toward a kind of
effigy journalism. Those we write about we all too often project to the
public as lifeless, one-dimensional representations of various political
positions and cultural categories, each within his designated grouping
being cookie-cutter identical to the rest.
"They are effigies in that they are suitable only for sticking pins
into or pasting over with little iridescent stickum hearts. For there is
neither tolerance nor room in our concept of them for individuality or
surprise or quirkiness or honest change of opinion, and no room for their
espousing an eccentric, unauthorized mixture of views that whoever it is
decides these things has decreed do not belong together. If you've been
badgered by the press as an unreconstructed liberal, say, or a hard-line
conservative, you're supposed always to act like our idea of one and not
complicate our lives.
"Thus, we tend to dismiss most divergence from the expected party
line as trickery -- temporary tactical maneuvers, presumptively
politics-driven. Our effigy subjects have been defined entirely in terms of
their 'position' and are expected, in some sense even demanded, by us to
live the lifestyle and vote the votes that we have associated with their
badges: the left-wing this and the right-wing that, conservative Christians
and secular humanists, pro-choice activists and pro-life demonstrators,
hawks and doves, and so on.
"As they emerge from the pages and airwaves of American journalism
these days, they are, in my view, terminally boring because they are, as
sketches of people, so monolithic, unconvincing, and implausible. Everyone
knows real people are not like that. Loath to abandon their fixed idea of
our views at the Post editorial page, many of our critics have a tag they
use on the innumerable occasions when we are not faithful to it. At such
times we are known, with reluctant, wary, and above all conditional
approval as 'Even the Washington Post...' It's like a temporary pass that
runs out at midnight."
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