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To: GuavaCheesePuff

We need the press, not “journalism”. The press is mentioned in the First Amendment; “journalism” is not.


5 posted on 05/19/2017 9:40:05 PM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai

Then what is journalism?


7 posted on 05/19/2017 9:44:13 PM PDT by GuavaCheesePuff
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To: Olog-hai

The press is mentioned in the First Amendment; “journalism” is not <<

Worth repeating!....


21 posted on 05/19/2017 10:49:39 PM PDT by M-cubed
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To: Olog-hai
We need the press, not “journalism”. The press is mentioned in the First Amendment; “journalism” is not.
The First Amendment intends that we should have free - and independent - presses. What we have instead is the (singular) Associated (not independent) Press.

The Associated Press dates back to about 1850; the (one-pager) Sherman Anti-Trust Act dates to 1890.

The AP was found by SCOTUS to be in violation of Sherman in 1945. But in 1945 the mission of the AP - the conservation of expensive telegraphy bandwidth in the propagation of news - still made the AP “too big to fail.” In 2017, OTOH, telegraphy bandwidth is plentiful enough, and cheap enough, that FR probably uses as much of it now as the AP did in 1945.  

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
People of the trade of journalism hold a continuous virtual meeting over the AP “wire.” All wire services, especially the AP, homogenize journalism to the detriment of the public. The multiple outlets which are the individual members of the AP essentially function as fronts for the one singular journalism at its core. There is more reason to dismember the AP than there ever was to break up Ma Bell.

That said, journalism is (knowingly) negative because - for commercial reasons - “If it bleeds, it leads.” Knowing that about itself, journalism claims to be objective. Thus, journalism claims that negativity is objectivity - and there can scarcely be a better definition of cynicism than that. Breaking up the AP would not magically change the fact that journalism is cynical about society (and the people who make society function) but naive about government. “Liberals” promote the idea that “government” is the same thing as “society”:

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

Thus we see that, deny it as they will, journalists will always tend to be “liberals."

41 posted on 05/20/2017 8:19:54 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which ‘liberalism’ coheres is that NOTHING ACTUALLY MATTERS except PR.)
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