The Next Time You Say, 'Bush Lied, People Died' -- Think

Townhall.com ^ | August 7, 2008 | Larry Elder

[ridesthemiles]

How about all the airplanes they found buried under cloth protection and under large sand dunes in the desert???

[TigersEye]

That’s the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

if I were going to write a history about a particular era or event, the first thing anyone would do, would be to read the press accounts at the time, and that would form the starting point for your history. And yet I know that, at least these days, most of what I read in the papers is false. So how does any historian have a chance of ever getting it right, even if they want to?

Journalists claim to produce "the first draft of history." And historians seem to agree with that. But then historians turn around and say that you can't write history of anything that happened less than 20 years ago. And the reason for that is obvious - anything more recent than that, and the "first draft" dominates.

In reality, as you suggest, journalism is so slanted as to be essentially useless for historical purposes unless you analyze its reports with such a skeptical eye that very little is left after you edit it down to whatever truth it contains. The reason is simple: journalism (and history) purports to discuss the public interest but journalism's actual mission is to interest the public - and that is quite a different thing than the public interest. You can interest the pubic with fiction, and that is essentially what journalism does in many cases. E.g., the "Duke Lacrosse Rape" cause celebre, and the "Killian Memo" hoax.

So you really can't write decent history of anything without putting "objective" journalism on the stand and grilling it as a hostile witness. "Objective journalism" can rightly be spoken of as a single entity because it is a creature of the illegal monopoly (held to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act by SCOTUS in 1945) known as the Associated Press. Any newspaper of the pre-1850, pre-AP era was openly partisan and would have laughed to scorn any suggestion its competitors were "objective." Before the AP, newspapers existed but journalism as we know it scarcely existed - most newspapers were weeklies which weren't in the business of rushing to press with novel stories.

The Right to Know

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[xp38]

I tried to view Talladega Nights but I never finished. It was unwatchable.

[DeltaZulu]

Please repost the last paragraph from time to time in the more popular threads. It was positively enlightening to read your description. It is full of the unvarnished truth.

[fr_freak]

Please repost the last paragraph from time to time in the more popular threads. It was positively enlightening to read your description. It is full of the unvarnished truth.

Interestingly enough, just a day or two after I posted that, someone else posted the link below on another thread, in which the guy describes liberal thinking in much the same way that I did, although he goes into much more detail. In the video, he talks about why liberals will always side with evil. It's long, but you might find it interesting.

How liberals really think

[PGalt]

I was pulled into Will Farrels latest fim? by my 14 year old ...it was the worst piece of crap ever... Will Farrell sucks big time

Exactly. I was pulled in by my son and wife, too. "Stepbrothers" had the audacity to do a hit on President Bush before the beginning. That was absolutely the worst piece of GARBAGE I have ever seen in my entire life.

[PGalt]

Thanks for the ping. Interesting observation. BTTT!

[Grizzled Bear]

Staff Sgt. Jay Wilkerson: "Two IEDs hit my Humvee. The first IED hit the left door... And the second RPG missile came..."

Huh?

[DeltaZulu]

The video you linked to was fantastic. Evan Sayet is brilliant. This should be mandatory viewing for any serious conservative. Thanks for link.