Fair and Balanced

One of the English language's landmark 20th century essays is Orwell's "Politics and the English Language," written in 1946. If you're having a lazy Sunday, read it in full here. It was written in the aftermath of World War II, with all of the skepticism of the ultimate triumph of order and liberty that would have been requisite at the time. Let me quote the final paragraph:

"I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs."

And where does that leave us, now living in 21st century Beirut? Why, with the launch of General Michel Aoun's OTV station, of course. Here is how Dima Sadeq, an OTV news presenter, described the station's political tilt:

"Even if we reflect the opposition's point of view, this will be done objectively," she added.

I don't really think I need to add anything else.