Perry Bacon: The challenges for universities right now parallel what's been happening in my field (journalism.) An industry with liberal (in the political theory sense) values is hated by the right. A deep desire to make peace with the right and maintain support from funders creates tension with the left.

The challenges for universities right now parallel what's been happening in my field (journalism.) An industry with liberal (in the political theory sense) values is hated by the right. A deep desire to make peace with the right and maintain support from funders creates tension with the left.

This is not a new insight. And it's obviously oversimplifying complicated issues. But universities and news organizations both want to operate from what Jay Rosen describes as "a view from nowhere," as opposed to articulating and defending values they clearly hold.

NPR could say, "Our values include tolerance for LGBT people, a desire to see less racial inequality and making it easier not harder to vote, since we are a democracy. Those are not partisan values, but in today's climate it means our coverage will often be more critical of Republicans than Dems."

The University of Southern California could say, "We don't have a clear set of values on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so we would rather not have a commencement speaker address that issue."

Those statements would create controversy too. But it seems to me that defending clearly articulated values is easier than having values that you don't articulate but act on in ways that are obvious to everyone else. "Neutrality" as a value basically puts other people in charge of your values.

at the end of the day, these institutions just want to be liked, yet don't realize their approach is counterproductive to that goal

And they are more concerned with the ire of powerful wealthy people than respecting free speech rights of their students or employees. It’s getting so old for Conservatives to claim free speech rights while silencing people they consider inferior!

I think it's more that they're terrified of bad press and they feel like standing for nothing is the best way to avoid it.

Neutrality as a value is also something defined by those with greater ability to appear neutral, which among other things, shows how neutrality is still ofc deeply political. Thinking abt this a lot w UNC’s coming “neutrality” policy www.wral.com/story/unc-sy...

UNC System moves to eliminate diversity goals, jobs at public campuses across the statewww.wral.com A Board of Governors committee approved repealing and replacing the UNC System's policies on diversity and inclusion at a Wednesday meeting in Winston-Salem. The full board will vote next month.

Neutral between two sides? Or are we supposed to be on the side of truth and presenting our best understanding of our fields?

Especially if you define neutrality as the midpoint.

Do you want to talk about the Fairness Doctrine and how Clinton consolidated media Perry? It sure seems you do.

The idea of absolute objective neutrality only really exists in right wing ideology. It means people are only able to externalise responsibility and blame problems on outsider minorities.

The commencement speaker doesn't represent the values of the university. That is pretty much globally understood. The university will have scads of speakers at commencement to represent the institutional values. You can tell the difference because they're the ones in university administration.

Good point. Yes.

In my classes, I tell students we start from a set of democratic values affirmed by the university in public statements, which include acknowledging the documented systemic harms of white supremacy & affirming that Black lives must matter. They don't have to believe, but they can't gaslight w/ lies.

USC has a clear set of values. It’s that the university thinks speech that angers the powerful should be stifled so that wealthy donors don’t get mad.

Are you articulating the neutrality principal? If so that means they should NOT block a speaker who will address this issue, because the university itself is neutral and allows all voices to be heard. Its not a bad way to go actually.

Or they could just have a clear aet of values on it instead of being moral cowards

Also, NPR could say that, but they'd be lying. Their frickin' CEO just delivered a statement saying that our obsession with "truth" is getting in the way of getting things done. There is nothing to save here

“NPR stands for Nice Polite Republicans” is such a stale joke even boomers tell it.

But then Chris Rufo will yell at them on Twitter and they’re such smol beans :( :( :(

This NYT article interviewing NYT journalists gets at exactly this. (And reminds us why Peter Baker is not a good journalist if we value democracy.) www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/r...

No Politics Till the 7th Date? How Journalists Try to Stay Impartial (Published 2020)www.nytimes.com Times reporters and editors take careful measures in their personal lives to remain objective in their work.

Those literally are partisan values, though

The Neville Chamberlain Issue

There's too much of a focus on 'fairness' and not enough on fact. And there's the process and personality stories.

Yes, RealDemocrats™️ often have integrity and follow through issues This is well known. That Third Way pressure for profit is hard to resist. MBNA employs a lot of whores.

It’s almost like

Sounds like capitalism has poisoned both journalism and higher education and we should probably burn both down and start again from scratch.

That includes you losing your job at the TERF paper, btw, corpocunt.

What is a Fourth Estate? Better messaging and access journalism? No! Punditry! Now hold on for this commercial break.

Maybe it's the privatized funding model, Perry?

Decades of favorable tax policies that allowed the super-rich to become super-powerful haven't helped. Take away their money, and the institutions won't have to listen to them.

bsky.app/profile/dnlm... My view on what happened to NPR but it also applies to journalism and universities

Trying to keep their budget from going from dog shit to zero. Alienating potential supporters to try to keep enemies at bay is such a bad strategy

Love that you’re posting here more!

Is the job of journalism to “make peace” with anyone? Seems like that’s the problem right there.

Exactly!

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