It'd be interesting if a paper could present opposing op-eds side by side by authors that are clearly the strongest on each side of the discussion. Similar to collegiate debates or the argument/rebuttal style used for the ballot propositions we vote on.
Often times - in today's media one side will present the other sides case by only addressing some strawman arguments.
This is the general idea of the Tangle newsletter [1]. They pick a topic from the news and provide "What the Right is saying" and "What the Left is saying" about the topic.
Newspapers generally run opinion pieces from an array of viewpoints.
They give the writers full freedom, which makes it hard to get strict point counterpoint pieces like that. And many editors are averse to a simple "two sides" narrative.
I don't think this has been true, at least for most newspapers, for many years now. The NYTimes opinion pages are a complete echo chamber for instance, and if contrarian opinions are published, heads roll. For instance they "retired" their opinion head after he allowed the publication of an opinion piece from a Senator Tom Cotton suggesting that troops should be used to quell the violent/destructive riots in 2020.
Reading the opinion pages 30 years back everything was very different, but times have changed to where big name papers are mostly just the news shoehorned into a tidy bias confirming package. In many ways I respect what Bezos is doing because it entirely drops the farcical pretext of balance.
it sounds like Bezos is opposed to any opposing opinions to "free markets" and those won't be found on the editorial page any longer except for occasional opinions
I think that if you put the strongest arguments for and against the flat earth theory together on the same page and with equal space, the result would not be a false balance. In fact I can't think of any better way to change flat earther minds.
In fairness, at one point the extremes of the public's opinions were much closer. It''s easier to debate "should we raise taxes x% to accomplish y goals" than e.g. "should we invade Canada for quite literally no stated reason." Polarization is brutal to public discourse
I like the idea, I think they would need to be staggered though, Author A writes an article giving their best case supporting X, a week later Author B writes a rebuttal to author A (let's assume it's well thought out and civil because we can still dream) in a follow up article, this continues for as long as it's an interesting conversation. Probably a hard sell to the modern audience and attention span, but I would read it as long as they both were substantive and well-reasoned.
I think it's better to present simultaneously, but give the authors several rounds of drafting against each other, so they can update responses into their main body (similar to how supreme court opinions are authored and released).
You'd need a really strong editor to be in charge of the review/revision/back-and-forth process, so they could cut out shenanigans like an author withholding their strongest argument, only to include it in their final version.
I'd probably have a rule that no new arguments could be introduced into an article, other than as a direct response to anything _new_ that the opponent author included in their prior revision.
Re: Strawman --
Lex Fridman often asks his podcast guests to steel man the opposing side's views. The guests who have well thought out opinions seem to do a really good job at this.
Not every issue has two equal “sides.” Does every article about vaccine efficacy demand an anti-vax counter? And who gets to decide which “sides” are given a voice, anyway?
RCP (www.realclearpolitics.com) does exactly this every day and has for almost two decades now. Unfortunately, RCP is currently majorly out of favor among liberals for... including in their polling average polls that showed Trump was going to win the 2024 election and linking to op-eds that agreed with Trump at the height of anti-Trump sentiment.
It's PR firm press release to get ahead of the mass resignations (or resistance he's meeting inside). He thinks he can get in front of the story of him exerting editorial control.
Doesn't the article open with a declaration of such control?
"The Washington Post's billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, announced a sweeping new libertarian vision for the paper's opinion sections on Wednesday, just four months after his decision to kill a presidential endorsement of Kamala Harris triggered hundreds of thousands of subscribers to cancel."
Anyone here old enough to remember if the Fairness doctrine worked? Current internet is impossible to regulate and it's easier to run Doom in a walnut than getting any site to issue a retraction or correct blatant lies, but relying on "arbiters of truth" or wasting hours or days to untangle every article and author is also a hard to concile with real life obligations.
> "We'll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others."
You can share your opinion... as long as it's the correct opinion :)
FWIW I do think papers can/should exercise discretion with the opinions they're willing to publish—not hard to imagine why someone might not want to platform hardcore extremists, hate speech, or just generally unwell people—but this is ridiculous. Especially since it's a clear move to favor the interests of said paper's billionaire owner.
"In the book, Bowles tells the stories she wasn’t allowed to tell at the [New York] Times: She writes, for example, about Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, which transformed into a police-free “autonomous zone,” or CHAZ, Antifa protests, and the experience of attending an anti-racism training called “The Toxic Trends of Whiteness.”"
> In the book, Bowles tells the stories she wasn’t allowed to tell at the [New York] Times: She writes, for example, about Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, which transformed into a police-free “autonomous zone
She has a book to sell, and she’s using the well-trodden path of outrage on right wing news sites to sell it.
Meanwhile her story is actually published in the New York Times. Although I was at CHAZ and i don’t know if this is a good-faith retelling of the situation. For example, not mentioning the violence experienced in Chaz was not due to lack of police but rather right wing counter protesters roaming and causing trouble.
The first part of your quoted sentence, for those wanting to know what those pillars are:
"We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets".
I'm not familiar enough with US ideology, but those 2 topics seem, perhaps too narrow? In my country, something about protecting consumers and also about equality and egalitarianism would be considered essential.
The actual original meaning (and the one that still makes sense) of free markets was “free from economic rent” as sections of the economy were monopolies granted by the king.
Those free markets really did benefit the people and the country. And they were compatible with taxes and tariffs.
Bezos is using the corrupted modern meaning, “free to charge economic rent” because he wants amazon to capture a greater share of global economic activity
Yeah there is an obvious immediate test here for whether Bezos is sincere about this new direction. An opinion section aggressively advocating for free trade should be able to find plenty of reasons to criticize the new administration. I'm pretty skeptical that's what will happen though.
according to what Trump says (i have not researched it myself) the US in the recent past has paid tariffs many times over what it has charged in tariffs, and he wants to equalize the playing field. So yes, imposing tariffs is a regression away from free markets, but if what he says about foreign tariffs is true, it already wasn't a free market for trade.
The US often talks about wanting free markets: but it uses some pretty big sticks too negotiate with and has some fairly hefty demands to get value for the US. The Trans Pacific agreement was pretty ugly as a New Zealander. In particular was the 'Disney' copyright extensions. The US uses it's economic power to increase is economic power, while inviting other countries to sell their low value farming goods cheaply to the US.
And it's not like they are respecting the intention of NAFTA - what's an agreement worth if the US can unilaterally decide to hack around their agreements.
There is a set of values that are common among news organizations. If you don't share a value, then of course you wouldn't think it's important enough for a newspaper to defend. That doesn't mean it's not important to those who do share the value.
In case you haven't noticed, the current US administration is packed full of billionaires who are dismantling all protections that keep free markets from steamrolling average people. They don't need more defense. They are winning more strongly than they ever have.
the comment is, I believe, not about importance but about the relative strength of those ideas in American society.
How much ink needs to be spilled defending ideas that have huge amount of backing, even among people who theoretically are ideologically opposed to it? Elizabeth Warren calling herself a capitalist is a pretty strong indicator of how much capitalist realism has taken hold.
It's like Bezos sending out a note saying that editors need to go out to promote not kicking dogs. Even amongst the supposed enemies of free markets, if you ask them enough questions so many people in the US still basically believe in it. Especially among the Post's readership!
Don't pretend cost of living wasn't a lot of Trump voters reason to vote for Trump. The tarrifs weren't a surprise and Vance was running around brandishing a box of eggs as the greatest problem.
The electorate only likes free markets when it makes things cheap with no consequences they care about.
I mean, actually, I would argue that free markets in America are in desperate need of defense, but probably not the kind that Jeff Bezos would provide.
Specifically away from business consolidations and monopolistic tactics. The very kind of thing that may lead to something like the breakup of say Amazon.
Readit News
Often times - in today's media one side will present the other sides case by only addressing some strawman arguments.
https://theonion.com/opinion/point-counterpoint/
[1] https://www.readtangle.com/
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/26/why-does-u...
Another one is ground.news [1] which lets you compare multiple headline news articles from various sources together.
[1]https://ground.news/about
They give the writers full freedom, which makes it hard to get strict point counterpoint pieces like that. And many editors are averse to a simple "two sides" narrative.
Reading the opinion pages 30 years back everything was very different, but times have changed to where big name papers are mostly just the news shoehorned into a tidy bias confirming package. In many ways I respect what Bezos is doing because it entirely drops the farcical pretext of balance.
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We don't have too many op eds defending the flat earth theory anymore. Sadly I've seen too many friends fall down such rabbit holes.
You'd need a really strong editor to be in charge of the review/revision/back-and-forth process, so they could cut out shenanigans like an author withholding their strongest argument, only to include it in their final version.
I'd probably have a rule that no new arguments could be introduced into an article, other than as a direct response to anything _new_ that the opponent author included in their prior revision.
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Any topic of current controversy, like vaccines, should have a counter. Even if you find it disagreeable.
Dead Comment
"The Washington Post's billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, announced a sweeping new libertarian vision for the paper's opinion sections on Wednesday, just four months after his decision to kill a presidential endorsement of Kamala Harris triggered hundreds of thousands of subscribers to cancel."
You can share your opinion... as long as it's the correct opinion :)
FWIW I do think papers can/should exercise discretion with the opinions they're willing to publish—not hard to imagine why someone might not want to platform hardcore extremists, hate speech, or just generally unwell people—but this is ridiculous. Especially since it's a clear move to favor the interests of said paper's billionaire owner.
That's obviously true of every newspaper in existence. No employee is allowed to publish any opinion that goes against their employers' wishes.
From: https://nypost.com/2024/05/30/media/ex-new-york-times-report...
Two people were fired at the NYT after publishing a perfectly reasonable op-ed.
And from: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10170541/Bari-Weiss...
"In the book, Bowles tells the stories she wasn’t allowed to tell at the [New York] Times: She writes, for example, about Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, which transformed into a police-free “autonomous zone,” or CHAZ, Antifa protests, and the experience of attending an anti-racism training called “The Toxic Trends of Whiteness.”"
I'm also a little skeptical of the NY Post and Daily Mail as sources, considering both are tabloids... do you have any others on hand?
She has a book to sell, and she’s using the well-trodden path of outrage on right wing news sites to sell it.
Meanwhile her story is actually published in the New York Times. Although I was at CHAZ and i don’t know if this is a good-faith retelling of the situation. For example, not mentioning the violence experienced in Chaz was not due to lack of police but rather right wing counter protesters roaming and causing trouble.
https://archive.is/2020.08.07-113728/https://www.nytimes.com...
"We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets".
I'm not familiar enough with US ideology, but those 2 topics seem, perhaps too narrow? In my country, something about protecting consumers and also about equality and egalitarianism would be considered essential.
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Those free markets really did benefit the people and the country. And they were compatible with taxes and tariffs.
Bezos is using the corrupted modern meaning, “free to charge economic rent” because he wants amazon to capture a greater share of global economic activity
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He's trying to get them to stop promoting socialism/statism.
And it's not like they are respecting the intention of NAFTA - what's an agreement worth if the US can unilaterally decide to hack around their agreements.
Dead Comment
How much ink needs to be spilled defending ideas that have huge amount of backing, even among people who theoretically are ideologically opposed to it? Elizabeth Warren calling herself a capitalist is a pretty strong indicator of how much capitalist realism has taken hold.
It's like Bezos sending out a note saying that editors need to go out to promote not kicking dogs. Even amongst the supposed enemies of free markets, if you ask them enough questions so many people in the US still basically believe in it. Especially among the Post's readership!
Biden and Harris both campaigned on price controls. Trump is all in on tariffs.
The electorate only likes free markets when it makes things cheap with no consequences they care about.
Specifically away from business consolidations and monopolistic tactics. The very kind of thing that may lead to something like the breakup of say Amazon.
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