1980s NEWS
Robert Lipsyte
Joel, in terms of making the media more accountable, which is really what we're talking about. Do you see any any danger in attacking an institution that is at least thought of as one of our one of the protectors of democracy?
Joel Dreyfuss
Well, I think the problem is that the media is most self righteous about its role as a protector. The fact is that in America, because we have the mythology of the impartial media, we which for example, doesn't exist in Europe. And I don't think Western Europeans are less well served by the fact that newspapers have political affiliations, party affiliations, in many cases, being liberal or conservative. In America, all our media like to pretend that they're very impartial. I think that I agree that the process of bringing the political bias to the surface forces news organizations to deal with these things the affairs reporting on on the sort of bias of of Nightline, the fact that they had the spectrum of guests went from sort of center right to far right. I think that's a case that's happening across the board in terms of media commentary and opinions expressed in the mass media. I think we have to bring that out, raise and raise, raise the consciousness and then I think you need the pressure of the consumer saying it's going to hurt you if you don't pay attention to these things are easily what we've been reading these issues for 20 years.