Politics and the English Language
In his latest op-ed column (10/13), William Kristol lamented the state of the McCain campaign and recommended firing everyone and starting over. In his column, he made the following assertion: "The media is hostile." That statement is regrettable because it gets in the way of clear thinking about the issue.
Surely, Mr. Kristol knows that, as a grammatical matter, the media are plural -- that is, "media" is a noun referring to more than one medium.
Still, it would not be correct to say, "The media are hostile."
As a political matter, the fact is that the various media have diverse outlooks. Some are liberal; some are centrist; some are conservative. Mr. Kristol, who has made his living for many years in the employ of frankly conservative media, should certainly know this.
p.s. The title of this post is borrowed from George Orwell; it was the title of his timeless 1946 essay by that name, which is worth re-reading in every election year.
Labels: journalism, Kristol, media bias, New York Times
posted by Chris Daly at 2:34 PM
2 Comments:
Chris:
What a treat to see the piece about your exploration into PM. I used to browse it as a young boy, and in fact my father, a Marine, wrote a piece or two for PM, about the Marines sent to Mainland China after WWII; a secret government mission to buttress Chiang Kai-shek. He might have written it under a pseudonym, but I never saw them: during the McCarthy era my parents destroyed all their left wing publications.
Peter Weissman (COM '71)
Are you aware that "media is hostile" is perfectly standard American English?
Further, your argument that the American form gets in the way of clear thinking is wholly unsupported.
Which is more clear:
(1) The liberal media is hostile. The conservative media is friendly.
(2) The liberal media are hostile.
The conservative media are friendly.
?
Answer: they are both equally clear. One just happens to grate American ears.
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