[dreamfactory2]

This is logically impossible. Journalists selectively choose what to write about - this is an act of curation. This is further editorialised by the news organisation. What do you think an editor does and why does every news organisation employ tiers of them?

Even calling it a story is well, telling a story. Presenting in terms of two sides further frames as a kind of dramatic fiction.

There is nothing wrong with all this and it makes news interesting and sometimes even edifying. Adam Curtis is an example of somebody who very blatantly selects and uses dramatic technique in order to shine light and show new perspectives on contemporary history.

The danger is in kidding yourself that it could be any other way and that there is some kind of objective and balanced position which reasonable folk hold - that's how people get manipulated, usually against their interests and sometimes in awful ways.

[mpyne]

> This is logically impossible. Journalists selectively choose what to write about - this is an act of curation. This is further editorialised by the news organisation. What do you think an editor does and why does every news organisation employ tiers of them?

By that logic it is logically impossible to ensure fairness in a judicial system. Should we then just give up and tell judges to do what they want instead of striving for the ideal of due process under the law?

[dreamfactory2]

As far as I know, courts aren't in the business of selecting juicy stories to get an audience to sell ads to (Judge Judy maybe).

Since you bring it up, that a court can't be completely certain is of course one of the main arguments against the death penalty - plenty of faulty convictions that we know of to back that up.

There's a much bigger difference though and that is that news outlets are mostly in private hands and usually quite openly run an editorial line. How would you feel about Murdoch or the Koch bros running the judicial process if you are certain the press are and will remain so even-handed? N.B. I'm not even saying this is necessarily a bad thing wrt journalism, just not to be fooled that it is something else (and which it often purports to be). Any adult should know that it's both foolish and dangerous to believe what you read in the press.

[nitrogen]

A trial is already the telling of two narratives, with the jury deciding which is more compelling.