From this mornings pokkie18 cartoon posting.
Posted on 05/03/2017 5:14:29 AM PDT by shortstop
Of course the news media is biased.
It always has been, and it always will be. To say otherwise is to deny the entire history of American journalism.
Widespread press animus toward Donald Trump -- before the election and after -- is undeniable. It is palpable. The media hates Trump, Republicans, conservatives and what they believe in. It is the defining theme of the contemporary American news business.
But it is also neither new nor surprising.
From the earliest days of this Republic, and through every era of its history, the news of the day has been driven by a political or financial agenda. The notion of "objective" reporting is a relatively modern idea born in the classroom and practiced by few. Any reading of American history shows that the press, though often influential, has always been propagandistic.
And usually it has been for sale.
The newly minted First Amendment protection of a free press was used to publish -- on behalf of those who supported Thomas Jefferson -- claims that George Washington was sleeping with everything on two legs. Similar publications -- supporting John Adams and the Washington coalition -- attacked Jefferson for being a drunk and raping a slave.
Alexander Hamilton -- before he was a musical -- coalesced power by building and buying a series of newspaper editors, assuring praise for himself and condemnation for his opponents. The rise of Andrew Jackson -- the founder of the Democratic Party -- came about because he got control of the newspapers. He used them in his fight against a national bank -- which in turn used its own newspapers to fight back. Likewise, the rise of the Republican Party -- in 1856 and 1860 -- was helped along by a string of newspapers which advocated for the party and its principles.
The run up to the Civil War was marked by shouting stories in Democrat and Republican newspapers, extolling the virtues of the one and condemning the vices of the other.
That, in large part, is why some newspapers today have "Democrat" or "Republican" in their names.
And the bias wasn't just political. For most of the 1800s, American newspaper editors were for sale, and businesses and regional interests wanting praise for themselves or defamation of their rivals merely had to come up with the money to buy it. Land speculators routinely bought stories praising whatever part of the country it was they were hoping to draw settlers to. If you invented something or wanted investors for your business, you paid the local newspaper to write a glowing story.
Newspapers were also routinely owned by the moneyed interests of a region and ended up being little more than cheerleading for those moneyed interests.
The Spanish American War was a gift from the Hearst and Pulitzer newspaper chains, which were looking for a juicy topic to spike circulation. The Gannett newspaper chain was built by a decidedly political man who was the Republican candidate for governor of New York and went on to seek his party's nomination for president. Horace Greeley was a man up to his eyeteeth in the Republican Party and who likewise sought the presidency.
Beyond the political and commercial, American journalism has also been resoundingly unreliable. If you read history, American newspapers are almost never relied upon as primary sources and their contents often deviate completely from documentable fact. That's because for more than 150 years they had a habit of making things up. Even as recently as the Lindbergh crossing, the major newspapers of New York and Chicago -- taken by surprise by the flight -- fabricated their coverage of it. One of the largest newspapers of that day -- and this -- made up an entire account of the flight which it published under Lindbergh's byline.
There is also the issue of infiltration. From the late 1920s on, progressives with philosophical ties to Russian communism were significant voices in American journalism. That priority -- advancing global socialism -- tinged coverage of the Great Depression and the build up to World War 2. When the Soviets were allied with the Nazis, the leftists in the American press opposed American support for Germany's victims. When the Nazis turned on the Russians, the American press likewise turned toward interventionism in the war.
After the war, when the occupation policies of George Patton pushed back against Soviet interests in Eastern Europe, a quartet of leftist American journalists went specifically to Germany to take Patton down. And it did.
The leftist lean of the American news media continues to this day. It is proven in surveys, political registrations and donations, and any fair reading of the reporting. Whether that arises from the institutional bias of a profession comprised of 98% college graduates reporting on a country of 25% college graduates, or whether journalism schools and hiring practices select for progressives and discriminate against conservatives, is open to debate. But the homogeneous and leftist nature of the American press can't be denied. In the news business, there is a diversity of faces, but not of opinions. Progressives of every demographic niche are welcomed, but only progressives are welcomed.
The news media is biased and propagandistic.
That's just the way it is.
But it's also the way it's always been.
So we shouldn't worry too much about it. Our nation has flourished with a biased press, and there's no reason to believe it won't continue to do so.
Because we've never taken it too seriously. Americans of every age have taken what the reporters say with a grain of salt.
As evidenced by the outcome of last November's election.
With all the power of the American press arrayed against him, Donald Trump still won.
That lets you know just how powerful the news media is -- or isn't.
The press used to be locally owned and gave us multiple viewpoints. But now our press is owned by a few global corporations with only one viewpoint.
These corporations are in need of realignment they all pull to hard to the left.
You da man, shortstop!!!
Plus they try to claim they are not biased. Which is the problem.
"So we shouldn't worry too much about it. Our nation has flourished with a biased press, and there's no reason to believe it won't continue to do so.
Because we've never taken it too seriously. Americans of every age have taken what the reporters say with a grain of salt."
Since the advent of TV, our society has been gradually dumbed down.
Too many of our "fellow citizens" are looking to be lead around, whether they know it or admit to it.
People want to be ENTERTAINED.
Todays news is as much, if not more, infotainment as it is information.
What we’re witnessing is way beyond bias,
We’re seeing in the MSM and in these NWO Globalists politicians in both parties and around the globe is what they and the evil they knowingly or unknowingly serve, what it looks like when that evil is being pushed back against by praying spirit filled believers,
This is not a battle against flesh and blood,
This is the spirit of anti-Christ rising up and being made visible even to sleeping Christians,
“With all the power of the American press arrayed against him, Donald Trump still won....That lets you know just how powerful the news media is — or isn’t.”
What it REALLY says is just how significant the Trump victory is.
THAT is something everyone overlooks entirely. The Democrats need to see that point... then get their act together. AND the GOP has a gargantuan blind spot on this fact as well.
The GOP is buying itself a one-way ticket to oblivion, if they refuse to ‘get it’.
I agree with “Of course the press is biased.” I agree it has always been that way.
What is different, of course, is that the press is owned by very few huge conglomerate corporations in our day, and these few very wealthy individuals/groups have similar interests and worldviews.
Therefore the news is 95% slanted in one direction.
In the America of yore, there were many news outlets with newspapers being the primary source of news. Most of these were in local hands. Even when they began consolidating, they did so regionally and not nationally/internationally, so various viewpoints were still available.
Except for the internet, we would be subject to the news as viewed through the eyes of the ultra-wealthy, and for some odd reason, they seem inclined toward a socialist world order. Baffles the hell out of me, but they are.
Perhaps they see power/money as being interchangeable.
The media is nothing but a propaganda machine for the left.
Baffles the hell out of me, but they are.
When you centralize power you protect your position. They, each. regard themselves as anointed
Newspaper printers were once fractiously independent. They reflected the opinions of their printers, which were all over the map. There were Republican newspapers, and Democrat newspapers.But newspapers always had a tendency to follow each other; even in the early days of the Republic, newspaper printers got other newspapers at subsidized postal rates, and used them as sources for their own papers. And then lightning struck. Well, electricity struck, in the form of the telegraph, which was officially demonstrated to the government by Samuel Morse in 1844. By 1848 the Associated Press was beginning, and now all major news outlets pay dearly for - and use its output as their input.
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 NationsThe AP constitutes a continual virtual meeting of all major journalism outlets, and it is only to be expected that this would homogenize journalism. Other wire services exist, of course - but their natural effect is not different from that of the AP.Journalism needs the assumption of “journalistic objectivity” because without it who is to vouch for anything in the AP? So even though the claim is fatuous, with no supporting evidence whatever, it is an axiom planted in our schools and in our society. Credulousness is a besetting problem in every society:
The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, 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.At the same time that journalists claim objectivity, they know that they are systematically negative. They know that “If it bleeds, it leads.” And that “‘Man Bites Dog,’ not ‘Dog Bites Man’” is a bias in favor of stories about violations of public trust and confidence. The trouble with that combination - actual negativity and claimed objectivity - is that it is the very definition of cynicism.The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things concerning which we believe him, our leader and director, and we look up to him with a certain degree of esteem and respect. But as from admiring other people we come to wish to be admired ourselves; so from being led and directed by other people we learn to wish to become ourselves leaders and directors . . .
The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
Journalism is systematically cynical about society - and concomitantly preaches naivete towards government. Which is IMHO the the definition of “socialism.”
And, now, with Faux Snooze going decidedly left under the Murdochalinsky boys and wives, we have very little. Conservative talk shows are our only hope!
Mark Twain
“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.”
The press is biased and always has been. For instance, the Tallahassee Democrat is not named that by accident or because the editors liked ‘democracy.’ But, once upon a time, there was diversity in the press - there was a whole spectrum of newspapers of every flavor. This is no longer the case.
The TV news was supposed to be objective, because the FCC was granting the TV stations a monopoly over bands of the ether. But they never were, and, thanks to cable, are largely irrelevant today.
Cable news is highly biased, and there are few or now right wing stations, and only a few shows.
Good post!
The press is to just report what is, not to make news.
The spirit of their job is to not make up, manipulate, or to falsely bare witness during the course of their work.
Since they so violate the fairness and unbiased nature of how their work is carried out, how are their protections of the press still intact?
At least they should announce they are reporting with a liberal view the way Hannity says who he is.
Tell us who and what you are. Do not claim unbiased open minded reporters or reporting when you are instead big advocates of the left.
I was incredulus when I saw Paul Ryan, after Jan 20th, in a presser with Trump. Say, "nobody saw it but Trump, the forgotton man, we did not see it, Trump did."
That sent me through the roof. He did not see his party gain majority in the house in 2010? and before that he did not see the massive teaparty marches all over the nation telling DC stop spending so much money. He did not see thousands of applications coming in to the IRS for a 501C3, to participate in elections activities and the D's stopped them? Didn't see it?
He did not see in 2012 that Obama won again, but the R's became majority in the Senate? Meanwhile from 2010 through 2014 the D's all over the nation were losing state seats, a thousand of them by 2014.
Apparently until Trump won, Paul Ryan did not see the earthquake of politics happening all around him. I think R's are in on it and don't want what they got, better to be a minority and have the press like them.
From this mornings pokkie18 cartoon posting.
President Trump had an impressive victory. He beat Cankles, the DNC, the MSM, and RINOs.
Now all the Donald has to do is beat the Republican controlled Congress.
I’ll take Trump 8-5.
5.56mm
The author is ignorantly-avoiding the crux of the problem, perhaps intentionally.
Taken in total, the article is propaganda, far from an objective analysis.
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