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textualdevianceSo, I got through my ethics presentation today, but I'm getting a bit of an upper respiratory thing, so I sounded rather terrible. Add in nerves and it was kinda pathetic. Ah, well.
The capper, though, was the presentation about the book that claims diversity is killing journalism.
Oh, dear.
The book, as far as I can tell, was one giant anti-Affirmative Action screed. The conclusions the author was making were completely devoid of logic. He was doing things like holding up how a black doctor, who had gone to med school thanks to Affirmative Action, was later stripped of his license for repeated malpractice. And then he went on about how some police force somewhere was hiring minorities who had criminal records.
Say it with me, folks: the plural of anecdote is not data.
Claiming that Affirmative Action is causing unqualified people to get hired is silly. Is that happening in some cases? Sure. Are neptotism, racism, sexism, looksism and a host of other isms that have traditionally favored white guys causing a lot of unqualified people to get hired, too? Undoubtedly. Let's see this guy write a book about that.
Just because some people cry wolf and play the race card, or some unqualified people get hired by some idiot who has no clue what Affirmative Action is for doesn't mean racism doesn't exist and doesn't need to be addressed. Affirmative Action done right does not require people to hire someone unqualified for the position. It merely acknowledges that diversity in any organization is a good thing, and therefore when given a choice of two equal candidates, it's better to go with someone who isn't a white guy if your organization is 99% white guys.
The number of success stories for Affirmative Action--particularly in schools--vastly outweigh the stories where something went wrong. And most of those latter stories are based in user error. Just because some idiot drives their car into a ditch doesn't mean there's something wrong with the car.
And on another topic inspired by this...
Idealized journalism is about getting the objective facts of a story. Getting the facts right is job #1 for all journalists.
Yet, for a profession that idealizes fact so much, it's surprising how little fact it requires from its sources, and how often journalists will print a quote by someone who is completely pulling something out of their ass with absolutely no counterpoint data to make that clear.
As an example, say a journalist is doing a story on gay rights. Some wingnut from the AFA declares that being gay is a choice, and therefore gays shouldn't be a protected class. Now, instead of getting a quote from someone actually working in an empirically-based field about the issue, or citing research that contradicts the wingnut's statement, the journalist will let that statement stand, usually in the interest of "fairness" or "balance."
Folks, fairness doesn't mean giving equal time to people who are talking out of their ass. If a journalist cares about getting and presenting the facts, letting a source spill bullshit all over your story without calling them on it does not dovetail with those ideals.
I would love it if, in the interest of sticking to the facts, more media outlets would decline to print statements from people who are known to be full of shit. When something is a matter of opinion, fair enough, present both sides. But when something is a matter of fact, printing people who dispute that fact based on the voices in their heads only makes the entire profession of journalism look bad. If we can't even filter our sources based on whether they're full of it, how can we claim to be about telling the truth?
If journalism is to be about fact, then it must honor empiricism, and not give platforms to superstitious nonsense. We can respect religion as a cultural issue, but accepting religious dogma as some sort of statement of fact in a story about an issue is anathema to what we stand for. If we wouldn't give equal stance in a story to a Holocaust denier or someone from the flat earth society, why do we give equal stance to someone who claims being gay is a choice? Just because a lot of people believe that doesn't make it a fact, and therefore we shouldn't be reporting it as such. A lot of people also believe that Elvis is still alive. Quick, let's do an investigative story on that one!
The capper, though, was the presentation about the book that claims diversity is killing journalism.
Oh, dear.
The book, as far as I can tell, was one giant anti-Affirmative Action screed. The conclusions the author was making were completely devoid of logic. He was doing things like holding up how a black doctor, who had gone to med school thanks to Affirmative Action, was later stripped of his license for repeated malpractice. And then he went on about how some police force somewhere was hiring minorities who had criminal records.
Say it with me, folks: the plural of anecdote is not data.
Claiming that Affirmative Action is causing unqualified people to get hired is silly. Is that happening in some cases? Sure. Are neptotism, racism, sexism, looksism and a host of other isms that have traditionally favored white guys causing a lot of unqualified people to get hired, too? Undoubtedly. Let's see this guy write a book about that.
Just because some people cry wolf and play the race card, or some unqualified people get hired by some idiot who has no clue what Affirmative Action is for doesn't mean racism doesn't exist and doesn't need to be addressed. Affirmative Action done right does not require people to hire someone unqualified for the position. It merely acknowledges that diversity in any organization is a good thing, and therefore when given a choice of two equal candidates, it's better to go with someone who isn't a white guy if your organization is 99% white guys.
The number of success stories for Affirmative Action--particularly in schools--vastly outweigh the stories where something went wrong. And most of those latter stories are based in user error. Just because some idiot drives their car into a ditch doesn't mean there's something wrong with the car.
And on another topic inspired by this...
Idealized journalism is about getting the objective facts of a story. Getting the facts right is job #1 for all journalists.
Yet, for a profession that idealizes fact so much, it's surprising how little fact it requires from its sources, and how often journalists will print a quote by someone who is completely pulling something out of their ass with absolutely no counterpoint data to make that clear.
As an example, say a journalist is doing a story on gay rights. Some wingnut from the AFA declares that being gay is a choice, and therefore gays shouldn't be a protected class. Now, instead of getting a quote from someone actually working in an empirically-based field about the issue, or citing research that contradicts the wingnut's statement, the journalist will let that statement stand, usually in the interest of "fairness" or "balance."
Folks, fairness doesn't mean giving equal time to people who are talking out of their ass. If a journalist cares about getting and presenting the facts, letting a source spill bullshit all over your story without calling them on it does not dovetail with those ideals.
I would love it if, in the interest of sticking to the facts, more media outlets would decline to print statements from people who are known to be full of shit. When something is a matter of opinion, fair enough, present both sides. But when something is a matter of fact, printing people who dispute that fact based on the voices in their heads only makes the entire profession of journalism look bad. If we can't even filter our sources based on whether they're full of it, how can we claim to be about telling the truth?
If journalism is to be about fact, then it must honor empiricism, and not give platforms to superstitious nonsense. We can respect religion as a cultural issue, but accepting religious dogma as some sort of statement of fact in a story about an issue is anathema to what we stand for. If we wouldn't give equal stance in a story to a Holocaust denier or someone from the flat earth society, why do we give equal stance to someone who claims being gay is a choice? Just because a lot of people believe that doesn't make it a fact, and therefore we shouldn't be reporting it as such. A lot of people also believe that Elvis is still alive. Quick, let's do an investigative story on that one!
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LOL! AMEN!