[lbo-talk] Circulation Plunges at Major US Newspapers

ravi ravi.bulk at gmail.com
Wed Nov 1 08:53:48 PST 2006


At around 1/11/06 11:04 am, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> You may not like a political orientation of the NYT
> or any other paper, but there is nothing wrong with having it. In fact it
> is not possible to have media without an implicit point of view, because
> whatever they print involves selection of material and every selection is
> arbitrary and thus reflects editors' preferences.
>

This from a man who argues for "science", "scientific method", etc. Every selection is arbitrary in what sense? Editors' preferences may not be arbitrary but based on some norm or standard, in much the same manner that scientific theories and claims are. Yes they involve a frame (not what I would call a POV as used colloquially) but one could argue that such frames (POVs if you wish) can and should be ranked. We are able to comment on the NYT's selection mechanism (their frame) only because we are able to look at it from a higher frame. The contingency of this privilege does not preclude its provisional use.

--ravi (who would've thunk)

P.S: please do not equate my use of the term frame with Lakoff's recent buzzword. He may be right, but I am talking about a different thing.



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