Is Every Story Ultimately Political? Perhaps the WaPo Thinks So

Is everything political? It seems to be that politics is one filter to look at stories.  Climate is another filter.  A filter can help you see aspects of things.. on the other hand, it can filter out other aspects of things.  Kind of like the story of the blind people and the elephant.

As it turns out, the WaPo has hired political and climate reporters, so we can expect more of that. And we can expect the WaPo to encroach upon stories that would normally be “environmental disagreement” stories. In fact, they now have a newsletter called “your weekly non political political stories.”

If you’re new here: The Daily 202 generally focuses on national politics and foreign policy. But as passionate believers in local news, and in redefining “politics” as something that hits closer to home than Beltway “Senator X Hates Senator Y” stories, we try to bring you a weekly mix of pieces with significant local, national or international importance.

I always say we need to beware when organizations redefine commonly used English words. It’s hard to imagine any activity that might not have some kind of political or climate angle, but does the story benefit from that filter or obfuscate? That’s for us to examine and decide.

The story that intrigued me was the Maine Lobster vs. Monterey Bay Aquarium issue.

And the WaPo’s view of why this is a political story..

The politics: This has it all. A locally vital economic resource, interstate commerce, environmentalism. Trade-offs.

It’s fascinating. What might have been a business story, or an environmental story, is now a .. political story. No thanks, WaPo.

At the same time, I think we need to look at possible political angles for the behavior of.. well… politicians and agencies in the Executive Branch. We don’t know, or at least I don’t for sure, but I think they need to be considered. Especially when decisions don’t seem to make sense otherwise. Not that political decisions are bad, but understanding motives is probably good.

6 thoughts on “Is Every Story Ultimately Political? Perhaps the WaPo Thinks So”

  1. Yep. Everything is political if one defines politics as “sorting out who gets what when, where, and how” as I have since earning an M.A. in political science at Boulder some 50 years ago.

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  2. In much the same way that William Pitt once said: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” And in much the same way as Oscar Wilde said: “Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”

    So too when humanity find truths to be self-evident, those who’s profits are jeopardized by the fining of those truths that the majority of us can all agree on claim will claim it’s not the will of the people, just “politics” and pretend to be an innocent victim of a unfair political attack. When the truth is they’re the real losers and history has well documented the demise of the scoundrels and the vicious who ultimately fail because they tried to hold the progress of humanity back for purposes of self-interest, greed and corruption. The word “politics” is often the same word these losers use for “woke.”

    Truth is: “A majority of Americans in a new poll have a positive association with the term “woke,” understanding it to mean “to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices.” The USA Today-Ipsos poll released on Wednesday found that 56 percent agreed with the more positive definition, while 39 percent had a negative association with the word and understood it to mean “to be overly politically correct and police others’ words.” https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3890296-most-in-new-poll-view-woke-as-positive-term/

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  3. “So too when humanity find truths to be self-evident, those who’s profits are jeopardized by the fining of those truths that the majority of us can all agree on claim will claim it’s not the will of the people, just “politics” and pretend to be an innocent victim of a unfair political attack.”

    Please see the following articles:
    https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3232&context=icwdm_usdanwrc
    https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/eap.2433
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10021-008-9201-9

    And find the overwhelming consensus in the scientific community, who yes rely on research grants from the USDA and DOI, similar to NGOs that rely on donations from morally outraged contributors, and then think of the language in a litany of well written news articles where the minority side claims they are under attack unfairly and it is politics.

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  4. I was lamenting science being hijacked by politics to a young PhD micro biologist friend. When I queried him, his response was “facts vary depending on the setting”. Wrong. Facts remain. Critical thinking is key to any situation Need I state common sense looks to be headed for the ESA endangered list.

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