Posted on 07/21/2005 4:55:58 PM PDT by CHARLITE
It’s safe to assume that the number one question asked at cocktail parties and on golf courses this weekend was who do you think “outed” CIA agent Valerie Plame. Likely, the answer depended on the recipient’s news source of choice.
For example, some media outlets affirm that it was Karl Rove, President Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff. In their view, Rove should either be fired, or resign.
Conversely, other news divisions maintain that Rove didn’t actually violate any national security statutes given that he was first told of Plame’s CIA involvement by a reporter, and that Plame hadn’t been working overseas recently enough as a covert agent for this “outing” to actually be considered a crime.
So, who’s right? Which media outlet’s take should we believe? Maybe more important, why should WE have to make that decision, and HOW can we possibly be qualified to do so?
Isn’t that what the news industry is supposed to do for US -- present unadulterated and unbiased facts so that we can understand what happens from one day to the next? Moreover, shouldn’t one be able to pick up a newspaper, or turn on a cable news channel, and become informed without the sinking feeling that you are possibly being lied to?
After all, with this story currently being the focal point of contention, one side of our media is going to end up being wrong. Depending on which side it is, this could be significantly greater than 50% of America’s news agencies, which means that more than half of the reports on this subject could in fact be erroneous.
How can that be? And, for those that are nodding your heads smugly at this suggestion because you feel that your side will therefore be vindicated with a huge win for your party, isn’t it just as likely that your view of what is the truth in this matter is just as errant as the media outlets’ whose veracity you never question because they fortify your political ideology?
Taking this further, there are currently over 600 television channels available via satellite. Let’s say you don’t want to hear the biased version of the news that is designed to make you feel good about your political dogma and the party you support. Instead, you actually want to hear the truth, and nothing but the truth.
Shouldn’t there be ONE of these 600 stations dedicated to such a thing twenty-four hours a day? Or maybe just an hour a day? Or ten minutes?
Or, is there simply no market for the truth? With the rise in popularity of nonfiction books in the past couple of decades, novels still way outperform this category on the New York Times Bestsellers list every week. Just ask J. K. Rowling.
Does this suggest that news has become exclusively a sales and marketing item? Are newspaper editors and television news producers making storyline decisions solely on the basis of which version will better sell to their target market regardless of accuracy?
After all, companies market products and services to us based upon a variety of demographics including age, gender, and income level. Why shouldn’t the media use the same approach to sell news reports based on political leaning if, in the end, it is all about ratings, market share, and advertising revenue?
Assuming this is indeed the case, a news agency whose audience is largely liberal had better report that Rove is the guilty party in this scandal or risk losing some of its valued customers. Of course, the same goes for a conservative outlet being compelled to defend Rove’s actions like a momma-bear defends her cubs.
But, doesn’t this suggest that we’re all a bit like Lenin’s “useful idiots”?
For those missing the simile, Vladimir Lenin referred to Western journalists, politicians, writers, and supposed intellectuals who professed the virtues of communism as “useful idiots” in that they furthered his cause in democratic and capitalist countries even though they weren’t Party members.
This term has recently been dusted off to depict exceedingly liberal media members, Hollywood-types, and socialist activists in our nation. In this modern conservative epithet, a “useful idiot” is any liberal who not only blindly accepts all the propaganda being spewed by Democratic politicians and their mainstream media minions, but also becomes a walking billboard for such biased and errant views.
However, given the absence of consistently impartial and irrefutable facts in much of today’s news reports, isn’t our entire population currently being manipulated like useful idiots regardless of political leaning?
Personally, I would like to see an example of genuinely conservative Republic newscasts (or print media forms) deliberately and outrageously slanting the news, or skewing the facts out of all proportion to their reality.
Well I dont know if o'reilly, limbaugh, and hannity count as genuine conservatives..personally i dont think they are conservatives, they are just demogagues.
But they often outright lie about the facts.
Rep. Rush Holt from New Jersey, who's on Hardball with Campbell Brown yapping about Rove. Even though Brown is obviously pitching for the Dems, she IS asking common-sense questions, and this crazy-eyed wackjob is babbling on about Karl Rove with absolutely no coherent logic. I don't know if Hardball is rerun later, but you owe it to yourself to see this touped turn babbling on like a hyperactive kid with too much cough syrup in him.
Now that I've quoted this I can't even begin to explain why it's such a moronic thing to write. I'll simply mention that anyone at all familiar with publishing can tell you that nonfiction outsells fiction 2-to-1, so in an article supposedly about "reporting the truth," the author has completely blown the argument on the launchpad.
Anyone watch C-SPAN where the Democratic has this witch hunt comittee on Protective Identities of Coverts??
It look like an outing of the CIA LEFTY! LOL
Who do these jerks think they are fooling?????
It is on now........
You have perfectly described what the LibDems think of FOX News. ;-)
BS. They present OPINIONS based on their worldviews.........CBS, Newsweek, etc., outright lie about the facts
do you ever ask yourself, is it really plausable that almost every media outlet has a liberal bias? with the exception of FOX.
Does it even make sense that every media outlet would have media bias, when you consider that the management of most media outlets are conservative.
Have you ever noticed that schools of Journalism go out of there way to teach there students not to have bias. In fact the medias desire not to have bias is so extreme, that they would rather have bad/sloppy reporting, than reporting that could possibly be accused of have, oh no "BIAS".
BTW, o'reilly, hannity and limbaughs flat out lies have been documented over and over and over again.
You lost the election, get over it.
No.......I believe what I have seen, read and heard for the past 30 years.
.....is it really plausable that almost every media outlet has a liberal bias? with the exception of FOX.
Uh......yeah. Bernard Goldberg, a veteran of C BS "News" wrote a book about it........maybe you should read it....
Have you ever noticed that schools of Journalism go out of there(sic) way to teach there(sic) students not to have bias.
LOL! Reality is NOT your strong suit.
In fact the medias desire not to have bias is so extreme, that they would rather have bad/sloppy reporting, than reporting that could possibly be accused of have, oh no "BIAS".
Talk about circular logic...........I got some news for you, pal. It is the fact that the media IS agenda driven that is the underlying cause of their rampant "bad/sloppy reporting", NOT some extreme desire to appear unbiased.
BTW, o'reilly, hannity and limbaughs flat out lies.....
First of all, you obviously do not understand the difference between news reporters and news commentators.
....lies have been documented over and over and over again.
Surely, you must have tons of documentation to back up that assertion...........
That was my long answer. My short answer is GO SELL CRAZY SOMEWERE ELSE.
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