Oh.... dear.
Rather silly piece
in The Economist about The Gays.
Bunk full of dubious statistics about "the gay vote" and unattributed quotes meant to represent what you - The Gays - think etc.
So some gay men vote Tory - wow!
So do a lot of straight people - get over it!
The Economist, like the FT, has always been pro-gay marriage, but this is just drivel.
Noam Chomsky on the business press, and why it's
usually a more reliable guide to what's going on in the world.
"Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis, two economists, in their work
on the American educational system some years back...
pointed
out that the educational system is divided into
fragments. The
part that's directed toward working people and the
general
population is indeed designed to impose obedience. But
the
education for elites can't quite do that. It has to
allow
creativity and independence. Otherwise they won't be
able to do
their job of making money.
"You find the same thing in
the press.
That's why I read the Wall Street Journal and the
Financial
Times and Business Week. They just have to tell the
truth.
That's a contradiction in the mainstream press, too.
Take, say,
the New York Times or the Washington Post. They have
dual
functions and they're contradictory. One function is to
subdue
the great beast. But another function is to let their
audience,
which is an elite audience, gain a tolerably realistic
picture
of what's going on in the world. Otherwise, they won't
be able
to satisfy their own needs.
"That's a contradiction that
runs
right through the educational system as well. It's
totally
independent of another factor, namely just professional
integrity, which a lot of people have: honesty, no
matter what
the external constraints are. That leads to various
complexities. If you really look at the details of how
the
newspapers work, you find these contradictions and
problems
playing themselves out in complicated ways..."
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