{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"<iframe src=\"https://embed.acast.com/$/9a03fe9e-1ff0-4dcc-b3f6-50bd1f016ea4/6ff52ff4-164f-4bce-8e56-991c51f10088?\" frameBorder=\"0\" width=\"700\" height=\"250\"></iframe>","title":"Facts vs Opinions","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/6195701f2eacc3a36070252a/619570bccb3c660012e3cf8d.jpg?height=200","description":"<p>David and Helen talk with Jonathan Shainin, Head of Opinion at the Guardian newspaper, about the challenges of political journalism in a deeply polarised age.&nbsp;Is it possible to hold the line between news and comment?&nbsp;Are the arguments about Covid a rerun of Brexit?&nbsp;What can scientists and historians add to political analysis?&nbsp;Plus we discuss how American journalism has changed the way it talks about race and violence and what that means for the current moment.</p><p><br></p><p>Talking Points:&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>The heightened state of political opinion writing around Brexit seems to have dissipated.</p><ul><li>The opinion pages became a vehicle for a kind of tribal politics. There was a relentless urgency to it: was that illusory?</li><li>Technology revealed the enormous appetite for news and commentary related to Brexit.</li><li>People want updates and then they want trusted voices to add to the experience and understanding of events.&nbsp;</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Is there a distinction between emotional and analytical opinion pieces?</p><ul><li>Opinion pages will always reflect partisan opinions.</li><li>To what extent is an opinion piece feeding into a libidinal appetite among readers?&nbsp;</li><li>Is there a role in either the Guardian or the Telegraph for an opinion piece that would be comprehensible to the other side?</li></ul><p><br></p><p>One thing John set out to do is to reduce the frequency of opinion pieces.</p><ul><li>In the early days of the pandemic, a lot of the pieces were explanatory and written by experts.&nbsp;</li><li>Can we separate scientific expertise from political judgment?</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Analytical pieces aim for a different kind of persuasion.</p><ul><li>Historians and political theorists can say: can we think about things in a different way?&nbsp;</li><li>No form of journalism can be made bulletproof against weaponised forms of skepticism or cynicism.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>The classical model of how the facts, the news, and the demos interact is now outdated.</p><ul><li>A new model would have to capture the chaos and instability between these elements.</li><li>Journalism feels more urgent, yet the urgency is accompanied by diminished authority.</li><li>Has Trump revealed the limits of the analytical mode?</li><li>What happens when there isn’t room for reasonable disagreement?</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Mentioned in this Episode:</p><ul><li><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2014/sep/16/-sp-is-this-the-end-of-britishness\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Ian Jack on the Scottish Independence Referendum&nbsp;</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/01/stop-brexit-remainers-eu-referendum-politics\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">David’s piece for The Guardian, It was all a dream’</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/16/number-coronavirus-pandemic\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">William Hanage for the Guardian on COVID</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ignore-these-siren-calls-to-end-the-lockdown-rrmg2f3zp\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Melanie Philips in the Times on COVID</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/12/political-tribes-passion-politics-voters-involved\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Alan Finlayson on why we should stop complaining about tribalism</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/sport/2020/05/whole-rotten-edifice-premier-league-has-been-exposed-coronavirus\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Helen’s piece on football for the New Statesman</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/07/climate-change-denial-scepticism-cynicism-politics\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">David on climate denialism</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p>Further Learning:&nbsp;</p><ul><li><a href=\"https://www.talkingpoliticspodcast.com/blog/2018/119-democracy-hacked\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">David and...","author_name":"David Runciman and Catherine Carr"}