[BeetleB]

> I'm not on the political right, but it's plain that they don't give it equal time.

OP said it's a "slice", not a "statistically accurate representation". I think his intent was to say "They cover everything", not "They cover everything in due proportion".

And, BTW, I've yet to find any show (news or entertainment) that is even close to being statistically accurate representation of society. Such shows will not survive - not enough people will listen.

[timr]

See my reply to the sibling comment. I don't know what a "statistically accurate representation of society" would be, nor do I hold that up as my standard here.

> Such shows will not survive - not enough people will listen.

Well yes, exactly. TAL has an editorial voice, it's clear what that voice is (even if it's difficult to describe in conventional political terms), but it's not inaccurate to say that the voice is left of center. Moreover, it must be, because that is the market for the show.

[j_bum]

This is a good counterpoint that I hadn’t considered, honestly.

That even if a show is apolitical (or mostly apolitical like TAL), it will inherently have some political bias because the creators are inherently biased.

This will create a “niche” for the show, whether it’s intentional or not. Thanks for expanding my perspective on this.

Reminds me of a recent quote from a scientist interviewed by the NYT, who said that science is inherently political, because the system and people it’s built on are political.

[throwawayqqq11]

Its not just about the creators bias. Any communication needs to be interpreted by sender and reciever and when that interpretation differs, communication starts to fail.

Recievers of such messages might see it as political when you speak about covid/masks, climate change, etc. no matter how hard you try to be unbiased. Unfortunately, anything can be a political symbol and you can either choose to accept their bias and avoid the symbol to stay "apolitical" or accept the "niche" you have been put into.

"99% of climatologist agree on ... yet, joining us, guru shananda, opposing it with equal air time" is a noble but net-negative attempt to address that bias.

[timr]

> That even if a show is apolitical (or mostly apolitical like TAL), it will inherently have some political bias because the creators are inherently biased.

I agree, but I'd extend with one other observation: a show can be rigorously unbiased in its coverage of any particular topic, but extremely biased in the decision of what to cover. The "editorial whitespace" is almost invisible, but perhaps more important than what gets covered. If you never cover the good points of the other side, its easier to make them look like uneducated extremists.

For example, while writing one of the other comments on this thread I wondered what a "TAL for conservatives" would look like, and it started to become interesting. While I'm sure that a great many people on the right would initially react harshly to the stereotypical affectations of TAL (tinkly emo music, emotional narratives, soft speech, etc.), you could easily imagine a show where you borrowed this style, and applied it to stories about families losing their multi-generation business to overregulation, bureaucratic interactions with big government, veterans affairs, etc. It could even be quite powerful, because there's clearly a human story that drives all forms of political belief.

TAL touches on some of this, but I bet there's more than enough content to fill a TAL-sized niche on the right.