Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Alterman

Altercation is good today.

The power of the consensus narrative in journalism is all but impermeable to reason or evidence. The right understands this and the left does not. That’s why the right worries little about nuance or getting the details straight; it’s the story that matters. Once you’ve defined the story, journalists struggle to make the facts fit the narrative rather than vice-versa.