Think about the mainstream press that we are encouraged to believe is reasonable. Its writers and its editorial policies have their own, often subtle, manipulative strategies (much of which we might approve if we knew about them). The intrinsic nature of communication is that no one and no entity (which anyway is managed by people) is capable of what we traditionally mean by “objectivity.” Indeed, in all of us (including me), many biased communication strategies have become second nature, requiring no conscious decision.

Here is my current, minute example, in the midst of a NY Times digest of its latest post-election stories: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/13/us/joe-biden-trump#another-progressive-group-suggests-biden-hires-we-are-making-it-easy-for-them-to-appoint-good-people. For many of us, this story is pretty encouraging news.

Let us, then, consider the use of “the left” in this clause at the end of the first paragraph: “the latest instance of the left’s attempts to help shape the president-elect’s executive branch.” Now let us ask ourselves, “What exactly does the writer (Sidney Ember) mean by ‘the left,’ and what is the Times’s editorial policy towards this usage?”

You and I may react with enthusiasm to whatever “the left” might be doing, but other readers won’t. Those who are less progressive may stop (on the assumption that what follows is crap) or skim on, primed  to take a dim view of the remainder of the report. And this passage could be easily cited by media on the political right as an objective “liberal” statement that reinforces expectations that a Biden administration will be perfidious even before it takes office.

At one important level, the problem here is failure to define key terms. What exactly is meant here (or anywhere) by “the left”? Seemingly, in this particular context (unlike many other contexts), it’s not the entire Democratic Party. But is it “the” left within the Democratic Party? Anyone to the left of whatever is meant by “moderates”? Anyone identifying as “progressive”? Anyone to the left of the entire Democratic party? Some subset of people to the party’s left? Marxists? Non-Marxist socialists (whoever they are, exactly)? Antifa (a much-distorted and maligned term)? A mélange of strugglers for whatever “social justice” is (of which I’m a constituent)?

Communication problems like this existed long before Trumpian abuse of language. Fair and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR.com) is often effective at exposing such subtext in respected sources like the Times and the Washington Post. (While I generally find FAIR’S commentaries helpful, and I donate money to support their efforts, I am not comfortable with how they use such occurrences to tar the journals in general, nor am I sure that its writers understand the impossibility of attaining whatever we mean by “objectivity.”) We don’t need to stop reading such sources (I certainly continue to, along with many other print media), but as much as we can manage, we need to do so with a jaundiced eye and attention to how our own feelings are burbling as we listen or read.