Viewpoints: Editorial board member Alec Dent offers a dissenting opinion to the Feb. 25 editorial "Tucker Carlson is not a journalist."
I am one of the few openly conservative journalism students here at UNC. We’re a minority in Carroll Hall, and classmates and professors alike are always fascinated to learn I’m not liberal.
I’m such a rare breed in the UNC School of Media and Journalism that most just automatically assume I’m liberal as well, and professors often make no attempt to hide their biases because they think nobody present disagrees with them. And this is not just my experience; it is widely known that UNC’s MJ-school, like journalism at large, is fairly dominated by a particular mindset. That is why the Triad Foundation’s decision to bring predominantly conservative speakers for the Roy H. Park Distinguished Lectures is so important.
While I agree with my fellow board members that ideological diversity is of the utmost importance in both academic and journalistic settings, the Park Lecture Series cannot be considered in a vacuum. The lectures may bring only champions of free markets and conservative ideals, true, but it brings them to a school that is dominated by liberal thought. The Triad Foundation presents a rare opportunity for journalism students to hear from a conservative in our field, creating the ideological diversity that we all value so highly.
The need to hear more conservative voices, and perhaps even more controversial ones like Tucker Carlson’s, is important for us as journalists from a practical standpoint, as well. Being out of touch with an ideology that represents such a large portion of the American public is dangerous. Who can forget how blindsided the media was by the results of the 2016 presidential election?
While it is true that Carlson is not a journalist in the strictest sense, punditry is an outgrowth of our field, which is why every major TV news outlet has their own Carlson equivalent, and why every newspaper has columnists.
Carlson speaks to and on behalf of millions of Americans, whose views many in the MJ-school don’t understand, and whose views fundamentally cannot be understood unless an effort is made to do so. And this best way to do so is simple: listen.
