I’ve been thinking recently about political machines, party discipline, and the “unbiased press.”
The idea that party discipline is “bad” is a new one. The idea of an unbiased press is also fairly new (as in from the 18th century to the late 19th century it wasn’t really very widespread, although attempts to be unbiased on a large scale probably go back to the 1920s or even slightly earlier.)
So I have to wonder, are we really better off with loose party discipline and an unbiased press?
Morally I think that yes, an unbiased press is superior to a biased press. I think that individual representatives making individual choices based on their constituents wants/needs is superior.
But when theory becomes reality I think we, as a collective whole (in the United States) are worse off with an “unbiased” press and loose party discipline.
Firstly, the unbiased press. The press isn’t unbiased, it is as simple as that. I’m not one who believes there is a vast leftist/liberal conspiracy to control all media. I do however think certain news outlets have certain leanings.
The Wall Street Journal leans right, Fox News leans right, CNN leans left, the Washington Post leans left.
On the right, WSJ is a more credible source than Fox News. CNN is more credible than say, Salon. The Washington Post is much more credible than the New York Times.
But therein lies the problem. With our media these days, much of the vox populi just assumes the press tries to be unbiased. At worst, the public thinks “well, this paper reports the news with no bias, but they have a slant in their editorial department.”
I don’t feel this is the case though. I think that any news outlet that has a leaning in its editorial staff is simply unable to keep that from influencing its reporting.
While a credible news source like the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal will not knowingly distrot in their news articles, the articles that they choose to report on and the specific language used can show a slant.
A popular example is the use of the words “insurgents”, “freedom fighters”, “terrorists”, et cetra. Each word carries with it a different connotation.
Insurgents is the most neutral, although it can be argued it has certain minor connotations. Freedom fighters shows an obvious slant, as does “terrorists.”
So I don’t think that despite the best efforts of medialites, there can be a truly unbiased news outlet. I think there are a very select few news outlets (the Christian Science Monitor being one) that are very close, but overall the number is extremely small.
Extreme news outlets like Salon, NRO, Fox News, are widely known to be a bit off. But the vox populi (love that term 
) tend to not notice the less obvious biases in news outlets like MSNBC, CNN, WSJ, the Wall Stree Post et cetra.
Now, back in the days of yore people would have their daily papers, they knew which paper was a Democratic Paper, a Republican Paper, and socialist/whatever paper might be in that town. They just assumed, and correclty, that what they read in the Dem paper favored the Dems, and vice versa.
I think for the common man it is simpler for them to just read whatever applies to their tastes, they know what they are getting, they understand it. I think the deceptive label of “unbiased” just leads to confusion, and the people cannot truly get the information they want, in fact they get misinformation.
Now, on to machine politics.
In the Gilded Age political machines ran the political elections (in fact up til the early 20th century.)
If you ran with the machine, they did their damned best to manpower you into office. When in office, you sure as hell followed the party line or the machine would have made sure you wouldn’t get reelected.
This seems somewhat contrary to what is best for a representative democracy, on that I agree.
But is our current system better?
I don’t think so.
In the current system, a politician can promise whatever they want, and they vote contrary or do nothing at all to achieve their platform. There are very few voters who have the know how or desire to track exactly what their politicians are doing day to day. There are a few organizations out there that monitor elected officials and show how they vote, but again, few voters make use of these systems.
I tend to think the current system doesn’t have that same oversight of politicians that the old system did. It’s much harder for a voter to be “informed.” Back in the machine era, if someone was with the machine, you knew they were doing as the machine promised, or otherwise they wouldn’t be with the machine.
Ultimately I think, considering the eternally disinterested nature of the American electorate, a “simpler” system tends to allow people to more fully understand exactly what they are doing when they go to the ballot boxes.
] and yet their news doesn’t seem to be at all. It makes for amusing copy sometimes when the news section is reporting on something like global warming accurately while the editorial page continues to propagate deception and lies on the subject. And, I also remember an article on wind energy where they gave an estimate of the relative costs and then the relative costs once you factored in externalized costs. I remember thinking, “Holy shit! They are talking about externalized costs in the WSJ.”