- Posted by Ad astra on May 17, 2009
Bell-shaped (Gaussian) curves abound in nature and human endeavour, no less among political journalists. They are scattered along a normal distribution curve in more ways than one. Their political orientation varies from the extremes of conservatism on the one hand, to extremes of socialism on the other. The vast majority lie between these extremes. In terms of quality, they vary from the excellent, several standard deviations above the mean, to the bulk that could be described as ordinary or maybe even mediocre, to the shabby, several standard deviations below the mean.
In his 1974 book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – An Inquiry into Values, in which he explores the metaphysics of quality, Robert Pirsig asserts that quality is indefinable, but goes on to say "But even though Quality cannot be defined, you know what Quality is!". Put another way, you recognize quality as soon as you see it. In the area of rhetoric Pirsig singled out aspects of quality such as unity, vividness, authority, economy, sensitivity, clarity, emphasis, flow, suspense, brilliance, precision, proportion, depth and so on, but found them too difficult to define. Pirsig also reminds us that the Greeks equated quality with truth, a notion that might help us to discern quality among journalists.
This piece confines itself to journalists who focus mainly on politics. More...