Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Subsets of Voters: Good Journalism or Widening the Divide?

OVER THE LAST few weeks, the Philadelphia Inquirer has profiled gay voters, evangelical Christian voters and Jewish voters in connection to the presidential race.

Is this good journalism? Or does this just increase the divisions in our society?

3 comments:

Geo said...

Seriously? No one has any thoughts on this?

Personally, I'm offended. It's easy for the media (and politicians) to group people together. But those ideas are massive generalizations. Just because you are Jewish does not mean you will vote like other Jewish people. Same for gays, evangelical Christians, African-Americans, women and every other subset of the American population.

I think its ignorant of the media to say that the Jews, gays, or anyone else for that matter is leaning one way or the other. We are all individuals.

- George (the classic Asian-American, urban-dwelling, dog-loving, bicycling voter)

Anonymous said...

I agree.

I understand that political groups do it for "studies" so candidates can better appeal to these "groups" but it's just an easy solution for them that's not actually going to give them the results they're looking for because, as mentioned above, we are all individuals.

But for a publication to subcategorize their readers this way is offensive. Not to mention bad for business...

Geo said...

Thanks Emily. I was feeling awfully lonely there with no one commenting!

- George (the teacher and individual)