IDEOLOGY IN AMERICA. Thinking about Matt's post on ideological outlets, this is the sort of thing that's long been attractive to me. I really do think we need less "objective" news and more slanted, but transparent, coverage. The bias you know is better than the bias you don't. But one thing that worries me: A bunch of partisan outlets would be a problem. There's nothing honest or constant about their opinions, and so the whole advantage of knowing their beliefs evaporates when the beliefs become inconvenient and change. In the United States, we have a sharply constrained spectrum of political thought -- only two parties of any relevance, and a public distaste for ideology. All of which is to say, I wonder if we have the culture or the institutions that would make ideological reportage a viable alternative. The UK, France, Germany, and others all have more serious ideological traditions than we do. And while, in the '50s and '60s we had the sort of philosophy-first groups that could've created a perspective-based reporting agency, today there are very few outlets that could sustain a non-party driven take on the news. On the other hand, these problems could evaporate, or could be a symptom of the objective media's disapproval of ideology, or could be solved by a popular new newspaper widening the allowable spectrum of opinion, etc., etc. So maybe such a paradigm would prosper after all. Any mega-rich commie simps want to put up some seed money?
--Ezra Klein
