The famous, super-smart personal security expert Gavin de Becker coined a great term to describe a certain manipulation strategy: "forced teaming." Forced teaming is basically when someone uses the word "we" or "us" in a passive-aggressive way in order to get you to feel like you're in a predicament with that same person, like resistance is hopeless so you better go along with that person, you're in the same boat together, etc. Anyway, today is the first time I've seen a benign version of forced teaming employed by a member of the media to excuse, even approve of, institutionalized bias. Witness new "Today" show host Meredith Vieira's "hey we're all biased" response to TV Newser's tough question about her anti-war activism:
TV Newser: "Right-wing Web sites are calling you an anti-war liberal who said 'everything' in the Iraq war has been 'built on lies.' Are you concerned about that -- are you concerned that you are bringing baggage to the show?"
Vieira: "No, I'm really not concerned," she responded. "Part of The View is to give your view...There is nobody, I would argue, who doesn't have biases... [On Today], it's my responsibility to put those aside."
I beg to differ--not everyone is biased, and the whole point of objective journalism is to be educated enough to not have biases to put aside in the first place. The "hey, we're all just built that way" defense of biased journalism is no defense at all--and she should, basically, speak for herself.
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» The MSM's latest pro-bias strategy: forced teaming
