The following is a portion of a comment thread posted on Glenn Greenwald's blog that recalled an interview with NYU Professor Jay Rosen. In the interview, Rosen discusses mainstream media's "ability to infect us with notions of what’s realistic," which Rosen claims " is one of the most potent powers press and political elites have."
It's a snippet from a 2009 interview posted on Salon.com, and it's a great short read. Here's some relevant sections from the comments:
Me (some paragraphs omitted):
The Tea Party and the Occupy movements each represent ideologies that are more or less within the sphere of deviance. But the conversation, carried by the web, is pushing these ideas into legitimacy.
My question is, what role do journalists play in weighing fringe ideas when doing a story on a popular subject with two traditional modes of thought? Is there justification needed for bringing in fringe ideas, or can it just be done? Also, is it necessary to balance fringe ideas from either side of the political spectrum, or at least try to?
