But in most newsrooms those few who vote Republican tend to keep their mouths shut, while those who vote Democratic smugly continue to assume that every decent, thinking person does the same. One answer is to accept partisanship, expand the viewpoints to more accurately reflect the nation as a whole, and then sit back and enjoy it. This development is often attributed to new technology, and indeed cable TV and the Internet have opened up new outlets for many previously unheard points of view. Newt Gingrich reaches his fans through a printed book, a medium that dates back to 1456. And Rush Limbaugh talks to his audience on AM radio, which dates back to 1920.
Partisan journalism can be good journalism.
Telegraph and Times are Conservative papers, the Guardian leans toward Labour. Le Monde is gauche, Figaro is droit. And in America, too, partisan journalism is often first-rate accurate, intellectually serious, stylishly carried off. Witness the unacknowledged partisanship practiced by today s mainline organs, or the acknowledged partisanship of numerous high-caliber magazines, papers, and broadcasts on the Right, plus a few on the Left. To many readers and viewers, these outlets actually aren t perceived as partisan at all, just as accurate and truthful.