Therapy

Reading Mark Steyn in Maclean’s this issue was like therapy for me. He basically speaks about those who are quite sure, very sure they themselves have absolutely no bias. It’s just everyone else:

What’s impressive about these anti-Fox critiques is their indestructible lack of self-awareness. Two years ago in Ottawa, I attended an awards luncheon hosted by Mr. Newman at which the keynote address was a lazy shapeless ramble by his CBC colleague Patrick Brown on China and the media. At one point, Mr. Brown remarked that Chinese state media wasn’t bad compared to Fox News.

Steyn goes on to say:

I’m a partisan figure–that’s to say, I have “views” with which others disagree: I favour small government, I oppose abortion, I loathe Canadian government regulation of free speech, etc. …But there’s something weird about a bunch of fellows insisting that they’re sober, responsible, and objective, even as they’re hyperventilating ever more bombastically about how the competition are bombastic hyperventilators. After all, a guy who enjoys getting his news from the mouthpiece of the Chinese politburo surely has “views.” Why can’t he just admit it? Why can’t the CBC or CNN or the New York Times, just say, “Hey, you know, you’re right, we have a particular world view and our content reflects that”?

Everyone, absolutely everyone, has a bias, a world view, a way of seeing things. They then interpret news and events through that bias. That’s life.

(And of course, I also enjoy reading, as I already knew, that Steyn opposes abortion. He just slides it in there, and I do appreciate it.)

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