This article in Slate magazine by Carlin Romano "We Are Pragmatic" sets out to show that the newspaper USA Today runs on the Pragmatic ideology of William James and John Dewey. Al Neuharth, the founder of USA Today, has created a paper which draws on the idea of a democracy of ideas. Romano argues that the way ideas are presented in editorials is in the Pragmatic tradition: they evaluate stands on an issue for it's "cash value." Romano compares USA Today to something like the New York Times reguarding the century old NYT as Cartesian.
I also thought this Foxtrot comic was an excellent example of Dewey's teaching method:
http://i41.tinypic.com/ftihae.jpg
That's really interesting-- when you think about what journalism is supposed to be it fits right into the same idea as pragmatism and more specifically Dewey's thoughts on education: if you provide people with specific details they will be able to sort out what is true/how to tell if something is true or not. What the article says about USA Today being objective and informative definitely makes you think it was made to work with pragmatism.
ReplyDeleteThe comic is a great example too.