Word: neutral
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Late in 1971, when union bosses were complaining that wage-price controls were rigged against workers, Meany personally wet-blanketed the President; he even forbade the union orchestra to play Ruffles and Flourishes when Nixon arrived at the AFL-CIO convention. But a rapprochement began when Meany turned benevolently neutral in last year's election. Last week, if music had been called for when Nixon addressed a closed-door session of the AFL-CIO executive council in Bal Harbour, Fla., it would have had to be Let Me Call You Sweetheart. Meany and Nixon paraded...
...journalists' privilege, or else tying that privilege to inherently limited situations rather than occupations. A more conservative interpretation of Douglas's notion of "testing" might hold that a citizen's investigative activities qualify him for a journalist's privilege only when he is acting as a completely neutral observer. Any hint of personal involvement in the case would justify denial of the privilege. Such "neutrality" is perhaps what Justice Douglas has in mind when he talks of Caldwell's "affirmatively pursued empirical research...
Since suspected criminals would not be "neutral observers," this doctrine would take care of the hypothetical "sham" newspapers. However, it would also involve a considerable amount of de facto discrimination against part-time, politically active journalists. Journalists who marched in peace marches would not be allowed to withhold information in cases arising out of those marches. And it is even questionable whether most full-time journalists would put up with this sort of restriction on their private lives...
STILL, IN PRINCIPLE, this criteria could be extended to any citizen who decided to take up an observer's position in order to "enlarge his intellectual viewpoint." (Since it is actions, and not sentiments that are here required to be neutral, a journalist needn't express a neutral point of view. "Ideological plugola" would be allowed.) And because most citizens would be unwilling to always adopt such a disinterested stance, the instances where such a privilege would be granted would be inherently limited. Perhaps fulfillment of the traditional ideal of neutrality, at least with respect to actions, is the price...
...that a citizen get a hearing with a right to tell his story and pick whatever holes he can in the opposing version. Often the requirements of that hearing include the right to cross-examine, the right to counsel, and the right to have the decision rendered by a neutral official...