{"id":136312,"date":"2018-05-08T17:54:51","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T23:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=136312"},"modified":"2018-05-08T21:52:57","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T03:52:57","slug":"sometimes-being-balanced-just-means-being-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/08\/sometimes-being-balanced-just-means-being-stupid.html","title":{"rendered":"Sometimes being “balanced” just means being stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"

If being “balanced” in your editorial approach means including people who say downright doltish things, are you really accomplishing anything useful? Talking about the Earth doesn’t oblige you to print the ravings of Flat Earthers. Having a mixture of opinions is only useful if the opinions, themselves, are useful.<\/p>\n

Or, as Carl Sagan once put it, “They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”<\/p>\n

Satire from McSweeney’s (h\/t +<\/span>Stan Pedzick<\/a><\/span>).<\/p>\n


\n
\n<\/a>
\nIn Order to Keep Our Editorial Page Completely Balanced, We Are Hiring More Dipshits<\/a><\/span>
\nHere at the New York Times, we believe that all sides of the story should be tolerated and explored, from white supremacists being actually kinda c…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If being “balanced” in your editorial approach means including people who say downright doltish things, are you really accomplishing anything useful? Talking about the Earth doesn’t oblige you to print the ravings of Flat Earthers. Having a mixture of opinions is only useful if the opinions, themselves, are useful. Or, as Carl Sagan once put … Continue reading “Sometimes being “balanced” just means being stupid”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,12,6],"tags":[1573,1574,1575],"class_list":["post-136312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plusposts","category-fourth-estate","category-science","tag-balanced","tag-false-dichotomy","tag-reality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/new-york-times.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":51725,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/14\/genetically-modified-organisms-gmos-are-probably-not-the-food-of-the-devil.html","url_meta":{"origin":136312,"position":0},"title":"Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are probably not the Food of the Devil","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 14-Jul-15 10:40am","format":false,"excerpt":"Despite the click-bait title (theirs or mine), this video from +SciShow is actually a pretty well-balanced review of what GMOs are, how they are made, and the costs and benefits of their development and use.(As a disclosure of confirmation bias, \"pretty well-balanced\" means here \"illuminating, but aligning with what my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22878,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/29\/unblogged-bits-thu-29-sep-11-1730.html","url_meta":{"origin":136312,"position":1},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Thu. 29-Sep-11 1730)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 29-Sep-11 5:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Flickr finally releases their long-awaited Android app | Android and Me - Cool. Red Shirt insignia depicts the fate of all redshirts \u2013 Boing Boing - Tempting ... Ex-Gay Project Fails \u00ab wakingupnow.com -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17202,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/04\/24\/we-laughed-we-cried-we-solved-the-mysteries-of-the-universe.html","url_meta":{"origin":136312,"position":2},"title":"We laughed, we cried, we solved the mysteries of the universe …","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 24-Apr-10 8:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"... but, unfortunately, a technical gaffe meant that the Second Stupid Evil Bastard Podcast vanished into the aether \/ bit bucket. Which doesn't mean that we didn't have fun. Chatting with Les about Doctor Who, the Catholic Church scandal, South Park, Sarah Palin, and whatever else came into our heads\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging - Technical"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging - Technical","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogging-technical"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13374,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/08\/the_job.html","url_meta":{"origin":136312,"position":3},"title":"The Job","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Jan-09 9:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I laughed, I cried, I counted my blessings ... \u00a0 (via BD)\u00a0...","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128999,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/25\/so-how-balanced-will-captain-america-civil-war-be.html","url_meta":{"origin":136312,"position":4},"title":"So how balanced will "Captain America: Civil War" be?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 25-Nov-15 12:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my biggest objections to the comic book \"Civil War\" series was that it stacked the deck from nearly the get-go.The moral issue in (the comics version) of \"Civil War\" is: given super-human characters who have tremendous powers, to what extent do we treat them as dangers that need\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Civil%2BWar.webpimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2081,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/03\/15\/travelogue_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":136312,"position":5},"title":"Travelogue 3","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 15-Mar-02 9:56pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Long day. Up early, breakfast buffet, then off to the meeting to kick it off with my stirring presentation on our departmental project execution methodology. They laughed, they cried, they...","rel":"","context":"In "Job Jollies"","block_context":{"text":"Job Jollies","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/job-jollies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136324,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136312\/revisions\/136324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}