About Remapping Debate

As we put it in a September, 2010 Columbia Journalism Review “Launch Pad” post: “We think that there is a fundamental (and democracy-corroding) paradox about the media ecosystem that needs to be addressed: for all the outlets and for all the bytes, the ‘why’ and ‘why not’ questions of public policy are too rarely addressed.

“Buried behind stories that explicitly or implicitly describe a particular policy as ‘natural’ or ‘inevitable’ or ‘realistic’ are a bevy of underlying assumptions about the ‘impracticality’ of alternative choices.

“The result is that robust policy debate is constricted, even at the moments when very large decisions are being made.

“Indeed, the treatment of a single policy direction as something akin to a natural phenomenon conceals the fundamental fact that each policy put or kept in place does reflect a decision that serves some interests more than others.”

We take seriously the idea that the job of journalists is to question and to illuminate.  We believe that we need to question ourselves as much as we question others. We want to be asking “why” and “why not” all the time.

Remapping Debate is sponsored by the Anti-Discrimination Center (ADC).  Remapping Debate covers the full spectrum of domestic public policy issues.  ADC is committed to the principle that Remapping Debate will follow the facts wherever they lead.

Our editor is Craig Gurian; our associate editor is Lori Bikson.