Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate

The framers of our Constitution gave carte blance protection to “speech” and “the press”. They did not grant that anyone was then in possession of complete and unalloyed truth, and it was impossible that they should be able to a priori institutionalize the truth of a future such human paragon even if she/he/it were to arrive.

At the time of the framing, the 1830s advent of mass marketing was in the distant future. Since that era, journalism has positioned itself as the embodiment of nonpartisan truth-telling, and used its enormous propaganda power to make the burden of proof of any “bias” essentially infinite. If somehow you nail them dead to rights in consistent tendentiousness, they will merely shrug and change the subject. And the press is protected by the First Amendment. That is where conservatives have always been stuck.

And make no mistake, conservatives are right to think that journalism is their opponent. Examples abound so that any conservative must scratch his/her head and ask “Why?” Why do those whose job it is to tell the truth tell it so tendentiously, and even lie? The answer is bound and gagged, and lying on your doorstep in plain sight. The money in the business of journalism is in entertainment, not truth. It is that imperative to entertain which produces the perspective of journalism.

And that journalism does indeed have a perspective is demonstrated every day in what it considers a good news story, and what is no news story at all. Part of that perspective is that news must be new--fresh today--as if the events of every new day were of equal importance with the events of all other days. So journalism is superficial. Journalism is negative as well, because the bad news is best suited to keep the audience from daring to ignore the news. Those two characteristics predominate in the perspective of journalism.

But how is that related to political bias? Since superficiality and negativity are anthema to conservatives there is inherent conflict between journalism and conservatism.. By contrast, and whatever pious intentions the journalist might have, political liberalism simply aligns itself with whatever journalism deems a “good story.” Journalists would have to work to create differences between journalism and liberalism, and simply lack any motive to do so. Indeed, the echo chamber of political “liberalism” aids the journalist--and since liberalism consistently exacerbates the issues it addresses, successful liberal politicians make plenty of bad news to report.

The First Amendment which protects the expression of opinion must also be understood to protect claims by people of infallibility--and to forbid claims of infallibility to be made by the government. What, after all, is the point of elections if the government is infallible? Clearly the free criticism of the government is at the heart of freedom of speech and press. Freedom, that is, of communication.

By formatting the bands and standardizing the bandwiths the government actually created broadcasting as we know it. The FCC regulates broadcasting--licensing a handful of priveledged people to broadcast at different frequency bands in particular locations. That is something not contemplated in the First Amendment, and which should never pass constitutional muster if applied to the literal press. Not only so, but the FCC requires application for renewal on the basis that a licensee broadcaster is “operating in the public interest as a public trustee.” That is a breathtaking departure from the First Amendment.

No one questions the political power of broadcasting; the broadcasters themselves obviously sell that viewpoint when they are taking money for political advertising. What does it mean, therefore, when the government (FCC) creates a political venue which transcends the literal press? And what does it mean when the government excludes you and me--and almost everyone else--from that venue in favor of a few priviledged licensees? And what does it mean when the government maintains the right to pull the license of anyone it does allow to participate in that venue? It means a government far outside its First Amendment limits. When it comes to broadcasting and the FCC, clearly the First Amendment has nothing to do with the case.

The problem of journalism’s control of the venue of argument would be ameliorated if we could get them into court. In front of SCOTUS they would not be permitted to use their mighty megaphones. And to get to court all it takes is the filing of a civil suit. A lawsuit must be filed against broadcast journalism, naming not only the broadcast licensees, but the FCC.

We saw the tendency of broadcast journalism in the past election, when the delay in calling any given State for Bush was out of all proportion to the delay in calling a state for Gore, the margin of victory being similar--and, most notoriously, the state of Florida was wrongly called for Gore in time to suppress legal voting in the Central Time Zone portion of the state, to the detriment of Bush and very nearly turning the election. That was electioneering over the regulated airwaves on election day, quite on a par with the impact that illegal electioneering inside a polling place would have. It was an enormous tort.

And it is on that basis that someone should sue the socks off the FCC and all of broadcast journalism.

Journalism has a simbiotic relation with liberal Democrat politicians, journalists and liberal politicians are interchangable parts. Print journalism is only part of the press (which also includes books and magazines and, it should be argued, the internet), and broadcast journalism is no part of the press at all. Liberals never take issue with the perspective of journalism, so liberal politicians and journalists are interchangable parts. The FCC compromises my ability to compete in the marketplace of ideas by giving preferential access addresses to broadcasters, thus advantaging its licensees over me. And broadcast journalism, with the imprimatur of the government, casts a long shadow over elections. Its role in our political life is illegitimate.

The First Amendment, far from guaranteeing that journalism will be the truth, protects your right to speak and print your fallible opinion. Appeal to the First Amendment is appeal to the right to be, by the government or anyone else’s lights, wrong. A claim of objectivity has nothing to do with the case; we all think our own opinions are right.

When the Constitution was written communication from one end of the country to the othe could take weeks. Our republic is designed to work admirably if most of the electorate is not up to date on every cause celebre. Leave aside traffic and weather, and broadcast journalism essentially never tells you anything that you need to know on a real-time basis.

Many in the media resent any suggestion that they are either shilling for an ideological agenda or hyping whatever will sell newspapers or get higher ratings on TV.

They resent it because their bluff has been called for what it is.

Resenting having their bluff called is one of the things Big Journalism does best.
The thing that is most amazing to me is that, as acute as Professor Sowell is - to say nothing of Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh - none of them has latched onto what seems the obvious question Sowell poses above. Namely, why is journalism tendentious - is it because they are evil, because the just wanna and they can, or is it because it is profitable?
IMHO it is obvious (after a lot of consideration) that latching onto scary scenarios like Global Warming, or The Population Bomb - or Alar poisoning apples, or Republicans wanting people to die in wars, etc, etc, etc - is simply the easy way for Big Journalism to make it look like they are doing the important job which they claim is their mission. And that their actual mission is making it look like they are telling people what is important.
Simply doing their supposed mission by accurately defining the actual problems most important to the country, and the necessary solutions to those problems, might not actually be profitable. It might not be exciting, and it might entail telling truths that people don't want to hear. For example, in the run up to WWII Winston Churchill was Cassandra, telling everyone that stopping Hitler was necessary. He was right - but right up to the invasion of Poland he was in a very small minority in believing that. If all journalists had agreed with Churchill, and pushed that POV, WWII would have been averted - but the trouble was that if any journalist took the pacifist line, that was far more popular and far more profitable.
It seems to me as an economic proposition that all you have to do is assume that journalists do what is easy and profitable, and you explain their behavior quite well. Their actual job is to mass produce stories which promote the idea that they are saving humanity by pointing out crucial dangers and pointing the way to "salvation." In order to do so they find nice, safe villains like orchardists putting Alar on apples. It isn't as though orchardists are going to hurt The New York Times, so it is perfectly safe for journalism to destroy their reputations.
Let an actual threat to First Amendment freedom arise - let a militant religion demand that certain things not be printed lest they offend, or else heads literally will roll - and suddenly Big Journalism is a pacifist. But let a Republican senator who has limited influence raise an actual issue of importance - communist penetration of the Truman Administration - and that is the end of the world as we have known it. It was safe to attack and destroy Joe McCarthy. If McCarthy had actually been the threat to Civil Liberties that Big Journalism claimed, Big Journalism would have folded like a cheap camera.
So the question is, why doesn't Thomas Sowell - why doesn't anybody - examine the behavior of Big Journalism from an economic POV? Sowell has a book entitled "The Economics and Politics of Race." He should write another entitled "The Economics and Politics of Journalism." Maybe he should coauthor it with Ann Coulter, and let her do the publicity for it. Since he is unwilling to do much media, notwithstanding that he is excellent at it.
Global Hot Air: Part III (Thomas Sowell)
GOPUSA ^ | February 15, 2007 | Thomas Sowell

The Fairness Doctrine made modern political talk radio close to impossible . . .

That's why the Democrats in Congress want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, of course. The FCC's rationale for imposing the Fairness Doctrine is tied to the scarcity of broadcast spectrum and licenses. It's not clear to me as a retired lawyer who practiced telecommunications law for 30 years, that this rationale continues to be valid in light of increased competition from cable, satellite radio, Internet, etc. But, who knows what the courts would decide.

If Congress does reimpose the Fairness Doctrine along with McCain's ~~promised~~ threatened extension of McCain-Feingold, we will have to hope that Justice Kennedy sticks with his dissent in the original holding that McCain-Feingold is constitutional. It is highly frustrating to me when people speak of balancing Rush Limbaugh with the likes of Randi Rhodes because we need Rush to balance "objective" journalism.
The dirty little secret of broadcast licensing is that there is no constitutionally permissible (as opposed to what the Ninth Circuit would permit, or what Sandra Day O'Connor would permit) standard for objectivity, fairness, or balance. The First Amendment doesn't say we are entitled to the truth, we are entitled to our own opinions - and to transmit our opinions as well as we can to others, subject to the fact that other people don't have to pay any attention to us. That isn't "fairness," that is a free-fire zone.
The FCC and its licensees have gotten away with a massive fraud in operating on the principle that whatever exists in free print journalism must be "fair" and can be the standard for "balanced" broadcast journalism. Proper reading of the First Amendment would forbid the government to decide prospectively whether journalism is fair - or balanced or objective - or not. Government licensing of radio transmission created broadcasting as we know it; without that licensing - without the censorship of the vast majority of us to make the few licensees' signals receivable over great distances - radio transmission wouldn't be "broad"casting, at least not reliably. And society worldwide is accustomed to the availability of broadcasting.
So the situation is that the government (FCC is part of the government) gives certain few of us what are essentially titles of nobility by certifying that they are broadcasting "in the public interest." And under the Constitution the government has no right to say what is objective (else would not eternal incumbency be "objective" in the eyes of congressmen?). Yet the broadcast journalist promotes the conceit that journalists are objective, and the government allows that propaganda to be broadcast as being in the public interest!
And it is provably propaganda. I can't distinguish a claim of "objectivity" from a claim of wisdom, can you? Is there any such thing as "unwise objectivity?" And even if there is, is that what the journalist means by the term? Yet since the ancient Greeks, philosophy has known that a claim of wisdom is extremely political - if I am wise and you disagree with me, you are automatically wrong. The claim that journalism is objective is sophistry, neither more nor less.
Dispose of the claim that journalism is objective, and broadcast journalism - and "reform" of political expenditures - is exposed as illegitimate. The Supreme Court should drastically curtail Congressional intrusion into politics. That would mean that George Soros would have unlimited ability to spend money on politics. But then, the money that runs the printing presses of all our newspapers is no cleaner than George Soros' money.
Lost in space with the Sulu Doctrine (Freeper Op-Ed) Freeport Ink (Illinois) | 8 Feb 07 | Mr. Silverback

"Suffice it to say that reporters generally don't abide politicians - not even the friendly ones - who say one thing and do another."

Journalism purports to be about "what is going on" - but journalism is actually about how important journalism is. That is where both the profit and the fun of journalism are.
Journalism promotes itself by criticizing everyone who doesn't toady to it. It calls itself "objective," and it calls its toadies "liberals" or "progressives" - or "moderates" or "centrists."
There are very few actual conservatives in America; there is no ground for a conservative to stand on, really. Because the theme of America - the thing a conservative would conserve - is freedom. And freedom is not a truly conservative but a truly progressive value - it allows and fosters change. That is why "progressive" is a label journalists favor its toadies with, and "conservative" is the label journalists dismiss actual progressives with.
So-called "conservatives" are actually in favor of liberty, and are truly liberals in the lexicon of a century ago - and still today outside the US. Only journalists and cooperative intellectuals could have distorted the language in that way. Which is why the idea that journalist actually is objective is hilarious to me. What a joke that I avidly followed "the news" until I was thirty five years old! Now I mostly think of it as an advertisement for something I wouldn't buy.
"It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena - Theodore Roosevelt

You only hear the bad news.

When you asked, "Any good political news regarding the military out there?," my immediate reaction was, "Of course not!" So long as the definition of "news out there" is "what Big Journalism reports," there will never be good news about the military.
The fundamental is that journalism has one overriding objective - to look important. Whoever promotes that objective gets praise, whoever competes with journalism for importance gets criticism.
Since journalism does nothing - except criticize, journalism is competing for importance with people who are providing food, clothing, shelter, fuel - and security. People who do things are the natural target of journalism; people who only complain - plaintiff bar, unionist, socialist politician, etc - mutually reinforce the complaining of journalism and are given positive labels such as "progressive," "liberal," and "moderate/centrist." In that context it is actually a smear to call those who promote liberty "conservative" - liberty is what allows change, and what "conservatives" conserve is the ability to change and progress.
Whereas socialism is actually reaction against the discomforts of change due to liberty. The very last thing socialism is is "progressive." Socialism is the (il)logical extreme of criticism and second guessing, the specialty of journalism which claims to be objective or which admits to being socialist. Ownership of the means of production is simply credit for developing the means of production (and the product which it produces as well, often enough). The socialist is a critic who wants to take from the producer the credit for the ability to produce.
The true progressive, the true liberal, agrees that
"It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena - Theodore Roosevelt
But then, whoever agrees with that is opposing the arrogation of credit by journalism. And that puts you in the cross-hairs of journalism's very considerable ability to attack your reputation. Starting with deceptively labeling you, and assigning the labels that truly apply to you to your opponents - so that there does not exist an accurate, positive label for you. Newspeak lives!
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

If you write the truth, people will read it whether they like it or not. However the truth must be the REAL truth, not some hippy-dippy version that can only be seen by the uber-liberals. - McGavin999

It is not enough that what is printed be the truth - it must be the truth in perspective. The reporting from Iraq is probably mostly true - but
Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin Franklin
Thus, people get the impression that things are only bad and not good in Iraq. They seldom reflect that they would conclude the same about their own home town, if they knew nothing but what was reported about it.

Liberal bias only irritates the minority of people who can detect it. Most of the decline can probably be attributed to short attention spans of TV addicted masses. People simply do not like read anything longer than a street sign. Most college grads I know have not read a nonfiction book since graduation.

Here there is a solution - the end of broadcast journalism. Broadcast journalism - all broadcasting - is a creature of the government. As such broadcast journalism is illegitimate government intrusion in politics - and the fact that broadcast journalism perfectly mirrors the political tendencies of print journalism does not make it OK. That is because the FCC puts the imprimatur of the government on broadcast journalism's claim of objectivity - and the government is not authorized to do that and is not competent to do that. After all, the government presumptively would style eternal incumbency "objective" if it were permitted to do so.
Red All Over -- Is there any hope for the future of newspapers?
The Wall Street Journal ^ | February 19, 2007 | Steven Rattner

How will the MSM cover/control the debate(s) involving Hitlery?

Too little by far, IMHO is made by conservatives of the intrusive nature of the moderator in presidential candidate debates.
There is no reason that the participants - all presumably grownups - should need a reporter to define the issues for the candidates. That is - that certainly should be - the job of the candidates themselves. There is no reason for the debates to be moderated in any other way than by a chess timer to equalize microphone time.
And there is no necessary reason why the debates have to be on (scarce, expensive) TV instead of radio and/or the Internet/Youtube. IMHO production values seem nice to have but actually are the tail wagging the dog - it's a huge logistical deal for candidates in a national general election to even get together at the same place at the same time. When you make them a big deal like that, they don't have the potential for informing the public that less formal settings would have.
If Rush set out to do it, he could have a debate a week between each pair of candidates in the Republican primary. Two hours, divided equally between the candidates, all on one day's program. In a month or two, you could do most of the interesting pairings and probably would be able to narrow the field down. And definitely define the issues of the campaign.
Come to think of it, probably the reason the MSM doesn't do that now is that it might take all the suspense out of the primary season, and so would be bad for business.
MSNBC to telecast (GOP) presidential debate at Iowa State (Nov. 2007)
Iowa State University News Service ^ | Iowa State University News Service

"It's not that we bring an agenda to the table."

Yes you do.

Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin Franklin
That being the case, it is not possible to prove the absence of an agenda unless you are telling the whole truth about everything. And since it is exceedingly improbable that you can prove that you are doing that, absence of an agenda cannot possibly be proved. So we are being ~~asked~~ told to take an exceedingly improbable and selfserving statement on faith.
What is the agenda of journalism? Simple. The one message that journalists want you to take away from listening to them is that journalism is more important than physical action. More important than providing food. More important than providing shelter, or fuel, or clothing, or security.
Journalists send that message by criticizing the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the weaver, the policeman, the soldier, the woodchopper . . . to hear the journalist they are all venal, corrupt, greedy, selfserving. But not the journalist, kiddo! The journalist - all journalists - are pure as the driven snow. And people who support the thesis that the butcher and the baker are greedy gougers are OK people too. But as for those dastardly business-loving Republicans, well . . .
Public Radio Liberal? Well, Yes, Panel Says
Madison.com ^ | February 22, 2007 | Samara Kalk Derby

The “news” media are not in the business of providing the most important information in clear fashion. Their job is to “attract eyeballs.” The more people who are watching whatever drivel is on the screen, the more money advertisers will pay for their spots.

I have been musing over an exchange I had with a liberal, who on learning I wasn't in his fraternity said in a condescending way, "You probably thing journalism isn't objective." My response was laughter, to think that anyone would suppose they could put me on the defensive about journalism. In the event, I was dissatisfied with the way I approached discussing it after he said that laughter wasn't an argument.
And it occurred to me today that I should have apologized for laughing at his religion. That would have gotten his attention and made him interested in my challenge: if his belief in the objectivity of journalism were based on something other than faith, he would be able to show that journalism tells "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Since nobody even knows the whole truth, and nobody tells everything that they know, it's impossible to prove that journalism does not have a self-interested tendency.
And of course, as you say, it does have a self-interested tendency - journalism has the imperative to entertain. More generally, the one thing journalists want you to take away from their stories is that journalism is important. And although as you suggest, they want the audience to tune in to their particular show, it is noteworthy that journalists adhere to a go-along-and-get-along ethic - no journalist will criticize another journalist, and all journalists uphold the conceit that all journalists are objective. Which ultimately means that there is no substantive competition among journalists - that although we have many journalism outlets we actually have only one journalism.
And liberals hold that that one journalism is the font of all wisdom and the very embodiment of the public interest. Otherwise why accept that the rules for profitable journalism - "If it bleeds, it leads," "'Man Bites Dog' rather than 'Dog Bites Man,'" and "Always make your deadline" - ineluctably lead journalism to produce objectivity?

The dumbing down of what is called news started in 1977, when ABC News put Roone Arledge, then in charge of its Sports Division, in charge of its News Division. The network was, unfortunately, correct in its judgment. News is really entertainment, except with unpaid actors and unpaid scripts.

I realized years ago that 'news' is a church full of pregnant girl scouts getting struck by lightning on the Fourth of July.

I don't accept that journalism was more objective without the explicit recognition of its entertainment imperative. In fact, it would be far less tendentious if it was open and candid about its entertainment imperative. After all, that is exactly what the Rush Limbaugh show is - journalism which is candid about its political perspective and about its intention to be entertaining so as to attract a large audience and be able to "charge confiscatory advertising rates."
Like Watching a Train Wreck
Special to FreeRepublic ^ | 24 February 2007 | John Armor (Congressman Billybob)

The politically driven media begins its sales job, needing not a penny of campaign financing or direction from Obama.

Journalism isn't objective, journalism is politics.

They are not a "free" press. They are the dedicated handmaidens of the left and they duly follow its "line of march".

It is not necessary to assume that journalism isn't free, merely that because journalism is free it sets its own agenda - and that journalism is singular. There's not a dime's worth of difference between ABC News and The New York Times, or between The New York Times and The Washington Post, or between The Washington Post and CBS News, and so forth.
It's true that the liberal would want to dispute that, but his desire to consider journalism objective puts paid to that argument. After all, if all those outlets of journalism are objective, how can they be truly independent of each other? If one of them is objective and another one disagreed about something, wouldn't that prove that the second one was not objective? The reality is that when CBS got caught dead to rights promoting the crude forgeries they were calling the "Killian memos," all CBS had to do was set up an "independent" commission to "investigate" Rather and Mapes, and to "learn" that there had been "no political agenda" behind their ruthless attack on the Bush reelection campaign.
Did The New York Times, or any other journalism outlet, investigate with an open mind and state the obvious, naked-emperor truth that CBS had gone all out to swallow any camel and strain at any gnat to smear Bush while giving Kerry a free pass? Of course not, because the outlets of Big Journalism are no more independent than the Boston Red Sox are independent of the New York Yankees. Oh, they compete within the lines of their games, but they cooperate in hiring the umpires and promoting the importance of the games. Just so, the outlets of Big Journalism compete for your attention among each other, but they mutually promote journalism and the idea that journalists - all journalists - are objective.
The dirty little secret is that what they are actually doing in the process is defining "journalism" as being what The New York Times and the rest of the Big Journalism guild does/says. Is Rush Limbaugh a journalist? Big Journalism would say no. Why? Not because he doesn't report news, but because he is candid. He is candid about his objective of making his show interesting so he can attract an audience and charge "confiscatory" advertising rates, and he is candid about his political perspective. Oh, yes - and his political perspective does not derive from the same source as does the (singular) political perspective of Big Journalism.
What drives the political perspective of Big Journalism? The nature of the business. The business of journalism is selling the idea that journalism is important for you to pay attention to. That is journalism's way of attracting attention, which leads to ratings and to advertising rates. In the process of promoting the importance of journalism, journalism calls into question the integrity and competence of everyone who takes responsibility for getting things done. Whether it be providing apples for the children (Alar, anyone?), or providing gasoline (pollution, high prices), or security (high crime, brutal police, ineffective military "losing" in Iraq, "Abu Graib).
Journalism is criticism of everyone who does anything. And socialism is the very same thing. Socialism aggrandizes credit for the development of products and production methods which was done by entrepreneurs, without of course taking any responsibility for any of the failures which went along with the successes. If everyone knew a priori that they could successfully start a profitable business, everyone would be a businessman and no business would ever fail. Socialism assumes that fact of life away, and therefore constitutes a second guess of the people who tried and succeeded.
A political perspective which inheres in the model of "objective" journalism. That perspective is socialism. Aka, "liberalism."
Obama: Best since FDR?
The Boston Globe ^ | Robert Kuttner

What's so bad about McCain-Feingold? I'm not saying I necessarily like it. I just don't understand the anger over it. It aimed to limit the influence of money in politics. Isn't that a good thing?

Who says that is a worthy goal? Not the Constitution. Does the Constitution say it is not a worthy goal? IMHO it does indeed. Because presses don't run on love, they run on money. Money for ink and paper, money for distribution, and money for reporters and editors. When the First Amendment stipulates freedom of the press, it is stipulating that money can be spent to influence politics.
The money that runs the presses comes from subscribers and from advertisers. Why is that money inherently pure, and your money is dirty? The startup money to build a newspaper can come from investors who got their money in any legal way; it doesn't have to come from some other newspaper.
The papers - and the broadcast journalists - say that journalists are objective, and they have Codes of Ethics up on their walls in gothic type to prove it. They say that the First Amendment allows them to "speak truth to power." It is one thing to have a right to manifest a particular virtue, and it is quite another thing to actually do it. Indeed, I have a right to own the Brooklyn Bridge - and if you think that that proves that in fact I do own it, I will be willing to sell my rights to that bridge for a very reasonable price.
Even were it true, it would be impossible to prove the negative that the portion of the truth which a newspaper prints is not "a great lie" - as Benjamin Franklin said is often the case with partial truths. The reality is, of course, that the portion of the truth which journalism systematically tells is the part that makes journalism seem important. The portion of the truth, that is, which promotes talk and criticism over action taken in the face of incomplete knowledge of the results the action will have. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker - and indeed the policeman and the soldier - all are constantly at risk of being second-guessed or even lied about by journalism. And by politicians who promote the same things that journalism promotes, whom journalism awards positive labels such as "moderate" or "progressive" or "liberal."

"All the News that's fit to print"

The reality is that journalism - The New York Times and all others - have one fundamental bias. That bias is that journalism is objective; the easily observable reality is that journalist selects its stories to make journalism seem important.
That is, journalism credits the critic rather than "the man who is actually in the arena." Whether that man is providing food, drinking water, fuel, or - e.g., the police and the military - security, journalists and the simpatico politicians whom the journalists label "progressive" promote themselves by tearing down the person who endeavors to get necessary things done.
That is how and why The New York Times - and the rest of Big Journalism - is biased.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

It will not do for the Democrats in congress to make it politically impossible to bring voter fraud charges. It will not do for the partisan press (read NY Times) In partisan Republican circles, the pursuit of voter fraud is code for suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people. to dismiss charges of widespread voter fraud and voter intimidation as non-problems when it suits their ideological purposes.

You want code? I'll give you code. In partisan Democratic circles (and there is no other kind of Democratic circle):

opposition to democracy is "Democratic,"

government is "society" or "the public sector,"

Civl Rights is opposition to the civil rights of white Americans,

objective journalism is the self-interested criticism and second guessing of anyone who threatens to earn credit with the public for actually doing something significant or important,

liberalism or progressivism is the idea that criticism and second guessing of anyone who threatens to earn credit with the public for actually doing something significant or important is objective,

. . . and the list goes on.

On the issue of the partisanship of the press, the press presumptively is partisan. But then, broadcasting is censored, so broadcast journalism cannot be considered part of "the press" under the First Amendment.
The "real" federal prosecutor scandal. Dems use it to steal the next election.
The Virginian ^ | 3/18/2007 | Moneyrunner

Nevertheless, there is a reasonable expectation that people who choose to be reporters will use their freedom to do good, not to do bad.

Agreed. But my point was that the assumption that reporters do good - that journalism is objective - is a prejudice. It is "a vagrant opinion with no visible means of support."
I go so far as to say that the claim of journalistic objectivity is a form of censorship. If faced with an open-and-shut case of politically tendentious journalism - such as the 2004 60 Minutes hit piece on President Bush's TANG service record - all journalists self-censor. None of them durst say the obvious truths that

Mr. Bush was not running as a war hero but as a sitting president standing on his record (so the idea that his service record of thirty years ago was relevant was not "objectivity" but a John Kerry POV),

The "Killian Memos" were not originals and therefore it is patently impossible to verify the authenticity of the putative "signatures" by the (conveniently) long-dead Col. Killian,

No chain of custody links the "Killian memos" to the personal effects of Col. Killian. And the quality of the copies of the "Killian Memos" is quite poor - indicating that each was itself made from a copy and that that copy was also made from a copy of the putative original. The poor quality of these copies obscures the putative signatures, and that lowers the standard of proof of authenticity for the credulous, but it also flies in the face of the fact that if these memo existed at all they must have been closely held. Copies made of copies of copies would not exist.

And finally, the fact that Microsoft Word, which was developed long after the putative dates of the "Killian memos," does a lot of easily observable things to facilitate and optimize the production of a memo. The conceit that the "Killian memos" were produced on some other device than Microsoft Word without producing any artifact in any of them which suggests that any of them were not produced by Microsoft Word operating in its default settings is a fantastic leap of faith.
The refusal of any organ of Big Journalism to point out these facts and conclude that the "Killian memos" were fraudulent partisan hit by CBS News is a mark not of the "objectivity" but of the solidarity of Big Journalism.

I think it is worth applauding when a reporter does good. It doesn't happen often enough.

That is where we "violently agree."
Katie Couric, Meet Becky Johnson
Special to FreeRepublic ^ | 31 March 2007 | John Armor (Congressman Billybob)

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