Big Media has some explaining to do.
Why was none of the GJ evidence reported at the time? Sure, here on FR, we heard about Wilson being taken to hospital, the broken eye socket, etc., but on CNN et all, crickets.
If anything, they went the other way, relentlessly stoking the mobs by playing up the “white-cops-are-murdering-innocent-black-kids” angle. Presenting all the evidence would have pulled the plug on a lot of the rioting (and rhetoric) - so why didn’t they do it?
There’s only 2 possibilities - (a) Big Media is too incompetent to discover the truth; or (b), they knew the facts and deliberately chose NOT to report them.
And since we’re always told (usually by Big Media themselves) what talented & award-winning investigative reporters they have, we must dismiss (a).
That leaves only tactic (b) - which is why I say Big Media, all those media outlets that irresponsibly fanned the riots - and knew they were doing so - owe the country some serious explanations.
You bring up a very important aspect of all of this, others have noticed the same thing, even many of the militant blacks have said it. The media could have just done their job early on an the unrest would have been somewhat quelled by balance of information, etc.
It does now seem that even the media bosses are realizing that they’ve gone too far with their agenda/bogus narrative, and that they have to help minimize the carnage.
Their theory is that they will always ask the questions, and will themselves never have to explain anything. It is my theory that in principle it is possible that they could be brought to book, but I’m a little hazy on a couple of details. Here are the parameters as I see it:
- There has never, in the modern era, been a political class with the guts to stand up to the political clout of journalism - there is never likely to be. That includes even Ronald Reagan. So the only possible recourse would have to come from the courts - specifically, the Supreme Court of the United States. Since the SCOTUS ObamaCare decision we worry about Chief Justice Roberts, but we have no imminent prospects of ever having a better lineup at SCOTUS than we do today. We should go for it.
- Since we’re never going to have an administration with the political will to confront journalism, we - and who “we” is, I’m not precisely clear on - must file a civil suit against “the media.”
- But “the media” is an amorphous concept, not an identifiable defendant - and “the media” as we know it includes fiction as well as nonfiction productions. So “the media” is out as a defendant; we need to be specific and we need to be correctly targeted. Our real beef is with journalism as an institution, and yet there are all sorts of First Amendment qualms about any action against it. However, it is my thesis that that concern is misplaced because journalism which is “the media” is abusive of the First Amendment.
- There are three main characteristics of “media” journalism.
IMHO those two characteristics define our defendant. The wire services in general and the Associated Press in particular inherently homogenize journalism because they constitute active cooperation among journalists in determining what the news is. And what is “objective.”
- ”media” journalism claims to be objective - which proves that they do not take the difficulty of minimizing the tendency of “where you stand” to be influenced by “where you sit.” Claiming to be objective constitutes proof that you are not objective about yourself.
- ”media” journalism is actually broadcast journalism, and
- ”media” journalism is wire service journalism - and the wire services (all of them) inherently homogenize journalism.
- Since all major journalism, including broadcast journalism, is wire service journalism, simply naming the wire services and their members as defendants covers the waterfront of active defendants. But in the case of broadcast journalism there is the major item of the imprimatur of the government on “objective” journalism broadcast over “public” airwaves. There is no logical proof of journalism’s objectivity, and the government exceeds its First Amendment limitations when it suggests otherwise. The FCC is a linchpin of “media journalism,” and it must be a defendant in our suit. In addition, the Federal Election Commission represents McCain-Feingold and the rest of “Campaign Finance Reform,” all of which are based on the theory that wire service journalism is objective. The FEC should be sued into oblivion.
- The torts which should be alleged consist, IMHO, of
- depriving the country of independent journalism. Wire service journalism is free, yes - but not independent, no. Wire service journalism is a single entity.
- conspiring to promote journalism at the expense of responsibility. Theodore Roosevelt defined the issue in his 1910 “Man in the Arena” speech:
”It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . . who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly . . .” The “Objectivity Establishment” systematically promotes the opposite, cynical perspective that “If you own a business, you didn’t build that . . .” Rejection of the claim of “journalistic objectivity” does not depend solely on the philosophical claim of the impossibility of objectivity, or the unprovability of the claim. The claim of journalistic objectivity falls because if you restrict your attention to the performance of journalism in comparison to truth - that is, if you compare what was said by journalism to be objective, with what time has shown to be true, journalism flunks. And even when truth is already known - for example, that Zimmerman was Not Guilty because he was attacked and battered to a dangerous degree before he used his weapon - journalism will continue to demagogue to the contrary. That demagoguery is dangerous to George Zimmerman, it is dangerous to Officer Wilson, and it is dangerous to the people not only in Florida and Missouri, but to the nation. The FCC does not have the right to enable demagogic journalism when public order is at risk. Broadcast journalists have licenses, and they should lose them if they endanger public safety.
- We have the defendant, and we have the tort. Who is the plaintiff????