The MediaFebruary 2010 Unhappy is the land by James Bowman On the deleterious effects of political correctness on public policy. Two thousand ten marks the twentieth anniversary of the entry of the term “political correctness”—in its contemporary, “multiculturalist” sense—into the popular vocabulary. There is a splendid irony to the fact that this dubious boon to the language should have been conferred upon it by Newsweek, now a self-conscious pioneer of what it hopes will be a new, politically correct form of journalism, in a sensational cover story to its issue of December 24, 1990. The old, un-PC Newsweek, which raised in this connection the specter of an Orwellian “Thought Police” and “a new McCarthyism” of the left, was drawing on an article by Richard Bernstein (“The Rising Hegemony of the Politically Correct”) that had run in the old, less-PC New York Times a couple of months previously—which itself d ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 28 February 2010, on page 57 Copyright © 2012 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Unhappy-is-the-land-4394
rate this article for your user profile
E-mail to friend
|
by James Bowman On the media's growing carelessness in concealing its biases.
Webcasts
Anthony Daniels on the Euro Crisis
Andrew C. McCarthy: The Muslim Threat
Roger Kimball: The Grim Future of Statism Weblog 
|
add a comment
you must have an account to post a comment. {register now}