If one formulates a similar pattern for journalism, the approach might target the deficiencies — speed, access to publication (the discussion), credentials, funding, and so forth.

Journalists are scientists of a sort, but they are also story-tellers, entertainers, griots, and historians. They take dry science in its boring detail and retell it as an entertaining story line. The balance that is being strived for is illusory however, because stories don’t tend to be as much about balance as about drama, and drama is often one-sided — protagonist/antagonist. Perhaps stories should come in pairs, with the protagonist/antagonist roles reversed.

It seems to me that the ethic of journalism should be to help the news consumer to better understand the situation as it really is (i.e. truth). The theory is that if people understand things for the way that they are then their decisions (in a democracy) will be better and we can achieve better outcomes.

Here are some various ideas:
— Jornalists could come in pairs to present “two sides of the story”.
— The story could be broken down into “facts”. Journalist “lawyers” could argue the facts and a representative sample of the news consumers could judge (on a Likert scale) the degree to which they agree with one side or another (i.e. deliberative polling). The result would be representative of all viewers had they been informed and deliberated.
— The outcome of the fact finding and deliberative polling could be reported on the news and help the viewer understand what perspective are worth considering and what are just hype.
— Later viewers could participate in 20–20 hindsight to judge what the truth was after things play out.
— Those news consumers who participate on-line could be scored based upon how well they judged the facts. High-scoring participants would have a better on-line reputation and get more attention. Their views on current news stories could also be broadcast.