By: Bruno Wolff III

Bruno Wolff III — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 13:42:17 +0000

There is a lot more to viewpoints than just “left” or “right”.
The MJS does a terrible job discussing issues such as copyright, software patents (or patents in general for that matter), DRM and other issues. Occasionally you will see an RIAA, MPAA or BSA press release with totally inflated costs of “piracy”, but no real discussions of those issues.
They also aren’t very good about handling issues affacting their bottom line neutrally. They were big backers of contructing Miller Park and didn’t give much time to contrasting views until after construction was started. Of course they stood to sell more papers if there was a local baseball team and so having someone else pay for building a stadium to keep the Brewers in Milwaukee was in their interest.
Kane discussing local racial and social issues is probably a good thing. I wouldn’t look to the MJS to find out details about national issues. I like the way Kane writes for his column and have been tempted to look at his blog, but the column where he discussed MJS having him do one didn’t suggest that the blogs were going to be very interesting.
Their coverage of national issues is poor. For example before the US invaded Iraq there was little questioning of the evidence presented by the administration or discussion of what it meant even if it had been reliable. (Putting chemical weapons in the same category as nukes is a joke.) When a prominent business leader spoke out against the war they lamblasted him. Saying that it was OK for normal people to speak out against the pending invasion, but not OK for people who might actually be listened to, to do so.
As for polical discussions, I haven’t found the MJS to be too great there. Where are the disussions about alternative voting systems. (For example using condorcet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method) voting could save money by eliminating primary elections and make more elections, not a lockin for the incumbant.) Where are the discussions about legallized bribery (i.e. campaign contributions by corporations and unions) and how the system might be changed to improve the system. Where are the discussions about the democrats and republicans locking third party candidates out of televised co-speeches (sometimes referred to “debates”, harking back to a time when the LoWV held events where all of the candidates could participate and the range of discussion covered more topics). There has been some discussion about how redistricting is used by incumbants to make many elections meaningless. But I don’t remember them trying hard to get this issue on people’s radar so that there is some pressure on the incumbants to fix the problem. (Say with alternate voting schemes and/or different rules on setting up district boundries.)
Of course they did make a huge deal out of some very minor voting irregularities (and not so much about real problems) which inspired politicians to use this to gain support for their pet projects rather than address real issues with not enough polling places, poll workers or adequate training for poll workers.

Comments on: Where’s the “Balance” at Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel?

By: Bruno Wolff III