Broadcasting’s formal balance of two sides distorts unequal real-world conflicts

Evidence

All professionals generate their own distinctive ideologies and routines. But the growth of professionalism in broadcasting seems to have another function—essentially that of a defensive barrier which insulates the broadcaster from the contending forces which play across any progressive-making in a sensitive area. It is often a species of professional retreatism, a technique of neutralization. By converting issues of substance into a technical idiom, and by making himself responsible primarily for the technical competence with which the program is executed, the producer raises himself above the problematic content of the issues he presents. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 872 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Communication distortion stems from asymmetric positions between producers and audiences.; Broadcast objectivity is an operational fiction hiding selective, value-laden construction.; Media balance reproduces the shared presuppositions that bracket political disagreement (+12 more)

Related

• Broadcasting’s need for credibility traps it between consensus and its critics (similarity 0.91)
• Broadcast professionalism functions as a defensive retreat from contested content (similarity 0.89)
• Media neutrality underwrites the shared presuppositions of political contest. (similarity 0.84)
• Media serve capitalism through impartial professional practice rather than overt bias (similarity 0.81)
• Broadcast impartiality is a staged performance of neutrality, not genuine neutrality (similarity 0.81)
• Media balance reproduces the shared presuppositions that bracket political disagreement (similarity 0.80)
• Professional skill in text reproduction requires suppressing intellectual interest in content (similarity 0.80)
• Television expresses and contains conflict simultaneously. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Broadcast professionalism functions as a defensive retreat from contested content #complicates (0.70) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 872