I agree, and I suggest that Sarah Palin should start a conservative news network.
I agree, and I suggest that Sarah Palin should start a conservative news network.I know I'm beating a dead horse here but I feel we need a revolution of the media in this country. - copaliscrossing
I am a broken record in my disdain for the media. But having studied the issue assiduously for decades, I feel qualified to state categorically that conservative journalism, in the mold of liberal journalism, is not possible. The problem we face is, as Adam Smith put it,It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity,In the founding era and up to the Civil War, newspapers were not dailies but mostly weeklies, and each newspaper was about the opinions of its printer, more than an even nominally factual basis. The printers had preferred access to each others papers (via a postal subsidy), but they did not literally have any news source which a man on the street, or in the saloon, might not have. Then came the telegraph, and the wire service (specifically, the AP). With the AP, suddenly your local newspaper editor had a cornucopia of reports which would not come to anyone else in the local newspapers area - until the local newspaper printed it.
and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing. - Adam SmithSuddenly, the newspaper wasnt like listening to Rush Limbaugh but was like listening to any ordinary news anchor we are now accustomed to. The credulity of the public was coopted by the sudden, unaccustomed fact that a newspaper would print a story today, and weeks later the report would be confirmed by first-hand witness reports. It was like magic. People raised alarms about the concentration of propaganda power which the AP represented, but the AP deflected them by by pointing out that the members of the AP were notorious for not agreeing about much of anything - and claiming that therefore the AP was objective.
The reality, of course, was that the AP homogenized the newspapers, leaving as a common denominator the self interest of journalism as such as the default assumption ruling all major journalism. And what is the self interest of journalism? It is to be respected, and to be thought of as must-read material every day. And what does that require? That journalism warn the public about dangers. Doesnt matter if the dangers are real, only that they are threatening. And in fact there are advantages if the danger is supposed to come from a trusted person or institution rather than (say) Al Qaeda. First, it surprises and engrosses the public. And second, the trusted person who is put in the dock is not actually a danger to behead the editor of the newspaper.
The long and the short of the matter is that liberalism is the default of the business model of journalism. There are obvious PR benefits to going along with journalism, and those are recognized by both major parties. Its just that the Democrats dont have any principle which would prevent them from going along more completely with journalism than the Republicans can. That doesnt prevent RINOs from trying - but it explains why they cant succeed.
So expecting Sarah Palin, or any conservative, to create conservative journalism is to expect the impossible. FR is as good as it gets, Im afraid . . .
The Market for Conservative-Based News