Do you think the Red Sox are not like the Yankees?
They're just different teams playing the same game.
Fans always defend their team and vilify the other. Always. With every dispute they're able to convince themselves it's the other side that are the cheaters. They can't both be right, but yet each side feels equally certain of their position.
But that also doesn't mean, as you and so many imply with these kind of statements, that both sides are wrong. It can be the case that one side is, in fact, correct, or less at fault than the other.
It's a fallacy that in a dispute both sides are always equally wrong, or that the answer is always exactly in the middle.
Yes, that's not what I was implying though (or at least didn't mean to). I meant they can't both be right all the time. The point being that fans think their side is always right and the other always wrong. When the reality is their side is sometimes right and sometimes wrong.
Certainly in any specific dispute one may be correct. Or both partially correct. Or both wrong. And one may be better or worse than the other in sum.
On the contrary, not only is this type of "both sideism" incredibly harmful to healthy political discourse (because it discourages engagement and breeds cynicism), both sides are not in fact equal, or even similar.
There are always bad apples, but you just need to look at how they are treated (e.g. whether they are rewarded or punished).
Dismissing it as "both sideism" just allows mediocrity to thrive. On both sides, as it happens. It's an endless loop of "they're the problem, not us". Deflecting any responsibility and avoiding self-reflection. Nothing changes or improves as a result.
Why not demand better on all fronts? None of the aforementioned media are doing grade A work.
They're just different teams playing the same game.
Fans always defend their team and vilify the other. Always. With every dispute they're able to convince themselves it's the other side that are the cheaters. They can't both be right, but yet each side feels equally certain of their position.