Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate

Conservatism IS Compassion ^ | Sept 14, 2001 | Conservatism_IS_Compassion

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

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.

[trisham]

Thank you, contemporary stupid young person

This account has been banned or suspended.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good grief.

[bert]

.....Lately we had the flap about the fact that officers talking to soldiers before the president interviewed them over a TV hookup.....

Not to mention the fact that almost all the news the MSM reports vastly distorts the true picture in Iraq. The MSM is anti war and thus anti America.

[bert]

.....Lately we had the flap about the fact that officers talking to soldiers before the president interviewed them over a TV hookup.....

Not to mention the fact that almost all the news the MSM reports vastly distorts the true picture in Iraq. The MSM is anti war and thus anti America.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Interesting take in today's Wall Street Journal by Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute. He points out that one in six Iraqis had fled Iraq under Saddam.

But today, several hundred thousand have returned (although Christians continue to leave). The other key indicators he cites is that "Property prices have skyrocketed across Iraq," and that the freely traded Iraqi dinar is stable in the international currency market.

Sounds like the big picture - what journalism systematically doesn't notice with its "If it bleeds it leads rules for what to emphasize - is that Iraq is no longer merely a great place to be from.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I'm more concerned about comments coming out of congress about how blogs are not journalism and not entitled to freedom of press protection - that makes the effort to classify sites like FreeRepublic as blogs potentially an actual threat, not just an anomaly.

The fallacy in that "logic" - central to the conceit that McCain-Feingold is constitutional - is the claim that "the press" is coextensive with "journalism."

That is patently absurd. Are we to believe that "the freedom of . . . the press" does not also refer to books, for example? Books aren't journalism either. Indeed the actual expression in the Constitution is "the freedom of speech, or of the press" - are we now to be spied upon by censors who arrest us like some Saudi Islamic police if we dare to tell our neighbors that in our opinion incumbent politicians should not be reelected?

Is speech and printing - and, lying somewhere in between, the Internet - discussion of politics to be censored, while intentionally offensive "art" is constitutionally protected "speech?"

Top blogs often too one-sided

[Free Republic and Drudge dwarf all others but are unfair]

The Oregonian ^ | October 23, 2005 | Regina Lawrence

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[conservatism_IS_compassion]

No doubt the first step of a resurgent Left in the United States would be to try to control talk radio and the internet, to regain its media monopoly. It could happen.

I'm conflicted on the question of whether "It could happen":

• It is true that there seems to be no limit to the leftist propaganda that seemingly sensible fellow Americans will swallow - and the conceit that Karl Rove was trying to get covert CIA agents killed is "Exhibit 'A'."

• OTOH it's really quite easy to justify that the internet is covered by the First Amendment. Judging by the fact that my uncle the commie pinko readily accepted that argument.

The real issue is talk radio. Internet posters count on having their issues picked up and amplified on talk radio and FNC. FNC (Rupert Murdock) might turn on us, and it's just a question of turning the FCC back to the "fairness" doctrine to knock out talk radio again.

Putatively "fairness" is about balancing air time for the left and the right, but since journalism which claims to be objective is leftist, "objective journalism" fills market for leftist commentary. Leaving only a slight niche for an Air America, which can't raise money via advertising.

It is arrogant to claim a virtue, which is why the philosopher claims only to love wisdom and not to possess it. But the "objective journalist" claims the virtue of objectivity (which I take to be indistinguishable from wisdom), and is therefore not a philosopher but a sophist. Any governmental policy, such as the "Fairness Doctrine" or McCain-Feingold, which is based on the acceptance of the journalist's arrogant claim of wisdom is either foolish or malicious.

It is worth noting in addition, that the framers of the Constitution considered that the Bill of Rights was implied within the text of the Constitution without the First Amendment; it is not proper to construe the First Amendment narrowly. If public flag-burning (scarce to be distinguished from an attack on constitutional government) and payment of government funds for the desecration of religous symbols are taken to be constitutionally protected, how much more so should be the exercise of prudent citizenship entailed in communicating with those whose political opinions we respect!

Is Valerie Plame the new Deep Throat?

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

FCC licensees are subject to licensing. Not journalists who work for them.

Suppose a journalist wants to say something which violates FCC rules, and does so. If the FCC pulls the license from the licensee, the fact that the journalist isn't the licensee would be moot, wouldn't it?

Suppose you want to publish a newspaper. Do you apply for a license, or do you just buy the printing press and have at it? Now suppose you want to be a broadcast journalist. Do you just broadcast, or are you limited to trying to work for someone who has a license?

If you want to publish a newspaper you just do it; if you want to be a broadcast journalist you have to have the government's OK - directly or vicariously. It's silly to claim that broadcast journalism is "the press," "the freedom" of which shall not be "abridged."

It all traces back to the "objective journalism" con. Only if you accept the conceit that The New York Times et al are objective - an assumption which the intent of the First Amendment makes entirely irrelevant in law - would promotion by the government of the perspective of The New York Times by government-licensed broadcasters obviously be in the public interest.

But someone just might be churlish enough to point out that even if you think that the rules of journalism determine journalism's "story selection," those rules have no constitutional standing whatsoever. Those rules are merely commercial - following those rules (e.g., "if it bleeds it leads") tends to enable the newspaper or broadcaster to attract attention and thus to be able to profitably sell newspapers and/or advertising. "If it bleeds it leads" simply counsels sensationalism; it has nothing to say about (for example) dedicating a lot of space/time to Osama ben Laden before 9/11/01.

Thanks to First Amendment freedom, we-the-people had the ability to learn a good deal about OBL even before 911. But to find OBL given his proper due before 911, you would have had to have read a nonfiction book on the subject, or perhaps a feature in Reader's Digest. Certainly not a tabloid newspaper featuring salacious material. "Objective" journalism which purports to be "the first draft of history" is a self-important humbug.

Dedication of "the public airwaves" to journalism is not in the public interest. Admittedly it interests the public, but that is not the same as forwarding "the public interest."

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, MR. NOVAK??
vanity | 11/03/2005 | Sam Katz

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

the power and influence of these mega-conglomerates is understated by counting them as 'six' because, in reality, these six are actually intertwined! They own stock in each other, they cooperate in joint media ventures, and among themselves they divide profits from some of the most widely viewed programs on television, cable and movies.

I don't even consider it necessary to prove that "the media" have interlocking directorates or any such thing. It is enough that their output is public knowledge:

1. If outlet A is putting out the story that Plame was undercover, outlet B knows it.

2. We all know (and therefore outlet B knows) that Plame was not covert in any meaningful sense.

3. The mere fact that outlet B does not blow the whistle on outlet A is sufficient to show collusion.

But the Plame-Wilson tempest is scarcely unique in the genre; the political hit on Bush by CBS's touting of forgeries as "federal documents" is of precisely the same genre. How different, really, is the fatuousness of the Plame-Wilson "outing" story from the fatuousness ofo CBS' claims that the forgeries cannot be proven to be fraudulent, and that CBS didn't express a political agenda when it took the Kerry line that the thirty-year-old difference in Kerry's and Bush's war records was more important than Kerry's and Bush's recent political performances? And how different are those two examples from journalism's infamous call of Florida for Gore while many polls in the state were still open - followed by journalism's vociferous attack on FNC for being the first to call the election right? How different all of these from the systematic denigration, from the very start of Operation Iraqi Freedom to the present day, of the efforts of our military personnel in Iraq?

It's as plain as the nose on your face that "objective journalism" is a cabal which openly self-selects - you get to be considered an "objective journalist" by all the rest of the members so long, and only so long, as you do not question the objectivity of any other member of the cabal.

It's all founded on the premise that nothing matters but PR - that the virtual reality which is only what journalism reports is all that matters. Essentially, a BIG LIE technique . . . "Liberalism" is simply the political implication of journalism's commercial imperative to attract attention for advertisers.

It may not be possible to prove that in a court of law beyond all cavail - but what is absolutely certain IMHO is that it cannot be disproved - and that the burden of proof properly rests on those who perpetrate such violations of the First Amendment as the Federal Election Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. Is it not for this reason, if for no other, that we require a firm majority of courageous justices on SCOTUS? For it SCOTUS will not vindicates our right to freedom of speech and press on the Internet at all times, nothing is more certain than that the media borg will assimilate the country unopposed.

The Amici Brief (The MSM claim that Plame was outed 1990's)
Baker & Hostetler ~ The Amici Brief in Confidential Sources Case on Behalf of 36 Media Organizations ^ | March 23, 2005

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

http://austinbay.net/blog/?p=704

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

the party of defeatism and an America that "can't-do".

The Democratic Party is simply an adjunct to establishment journalism. Establishment journalism exists to attract attention to itself, and to promote the idea that it is the font of all wisdom (which onanistic fantasy I now interreupt with the obvious reality that, far from being objective, journalism is superficial and arrogant).

Democratic politicians, taking we-the-people as being infinitely maleable by PR, arrogantly assume that PR is the only power. It is a POV which cannot accord respect to the armed citizen - not individually, not as a member of the police, and not as a member of the military.

Murtha Says Military Can't Accomplish Mission, but Couric Sees Chaos in Hasty Retreat
Today Show/NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

you can't help being furious to hear John Murtha say, as he just did, "When you fight an insurgency, you have to win the hearts and minds of the people, and we've lost the hearts and minds of the people."

How can he say such a thing? How? I think the hearts and minds of the people are made clear on election day. And, in a week or so, Iraq will have had three of them this year. And those hearts and minds are with a new, democratic Iraq — an Arab experiment, which the Americans are making possible. Iraqi voters dodge terrorists as they go to the polls. I'll never forget the image of a woman spitting on the corpse of a suicide bomber, as she walked around it, to cast her ballot.

How can he say such a thing? Simple. If you start from the premise that we-the-people are infinitely maleable via PR, you conclude that elections are not legitimate because they reflect, or should reflect, only what objective journalism tells the sheeple to believe. If the vote total does not reflect what objective journalism told the sheeple to believe, it is the vote total which is wrong.

As a Democrat, Murtha would not say that "we've lost the hearts and minds of the people" - in fact he wouldn't say anything - that he didn't know that objective journalism would endorse. It's not that "objective journalism" is in the pocket of Murtha and the Democratic Party; Murtha and the Democratic Party are in the pocket of "objective journalism."

Note: "objective journalism" belongs in scare quotes throughout since, far from being objective, the "objective journalism" establisment is a demonstrably superficial and arrogant cabal. I omitted the scare quotes earlier because there I was discussing the Democratic (quite obviously, as I hope I have demostrated, undemocratic) mindset, and they would have distracted from my point.

Impromptus: On Dean and Company
National Review Online ^ | 7 Dec 2005 | Jay Nordlinger

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

"To some extent, podcasts are the next wave of blogging," Demopoulos told The Web. "Blogs are still growing rapidly in number and influence and podcasts -- audio blogs -- are the most explosive part of that growth."

Two points:

1. Podcast "air time" is dirt cheap compared even to radio, never mind TV. There is no reason why political debates should be short, and restricted to TV; presidential debates should be far longer. There is no need of a moderator; the candidates can debate among themselves openly. Moderated TV debates are stilted, and they are slanted toward extracting a gotcha sound bite from the conservative candidate.

2. Although podcasting is cheap compared to radio and TV, it is expensive compared to text blogging; production values are more of a factor. For that reason podcasting is a step backward in rational discourse from the pure blog.

The Web: Pols embracing podcasting
UPI ^ | December 7, 2005 | UPI

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

when I use the term "objective," this isn't just, "Well, you have your view of objective and I have mine." It meant something specific, namely a commitment to excluding "value judgments" and ONLY going with facts. Take today's economic news, for ex.: the 1870s papers would be reporting this as TREMENDOUS news because they would only be reporting the facts of the economic growth, NOT the potential "dangers" and "warning signs" that never seem to materialize. To guarantee they got just facts, they established a rigid code of ethics in about 1910, including multiple valid sourcing, "getting the other side of the story," and only printing what they could prove. (That lets out 90% of modern reporting---are you listening Dan Rather?)

The danger is that all this was done in a "value-free" environment which presumed there was ALWAYS "another side of the story." Now, few reporters really believed that until the 1960s. Most still believed in God, and truth, and loved America.

So the system worked even with a flaw at its core - the flaw that even if your actual perspective is benign it is arrogant to believe that your can trnascend your own perspective and actually be objective.

But once that changed, the impetus to "get the other side of the story" metastisized into a notion that you have to listen to demonic figures like Saddam or Bin Laden [or, for that matter, Kerry or Pelosi or Murtha] with the same credibility as you give [serious, temperate adult Americans such as] Bush.

Once that changed the result was, in a word, cynicism.

Impromptus: On Dean and Company
National Review Online ^ | 7 Dec 2005 | Jay Nordlinger

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

What makes a person derive all his political positions from his belief that America is evil, stupid, corrupt, etc.? For some young people it can be put down to being "fashionable". But it makes no sense whatsoever when we're talking about well-to-do senators and the like. But it's not just posturing. Their knee-jerk response to most subjects is to blame America, find fault with soldiers/policemen, etc.

What explains this?! I just don't believe a normal, rational person can hold these beliefs while living in this society and being almost "lionized" for "holding America accountable".

I think it's a kind of desperation for adequacy and it is, ironically, found at both extremes of American society. In the poor it is, seemingly, explicable: "I don't have, and everyone else does, so what does that make me?" In the rich it seems to be a combination of condescending pity for "the poor" (who BTW are as well off as the middle class was fifty years ago) and a desire to manifest distinctness from the middle class.

The middle class has no desire to tear down the rich and can't afford to patronize "the poor," since its separation from that status is a work in progress.

In any event, the phenomenon of American antiAmericanism puts me in mind of the story of the Almanac editor who received a draft prediction of the year's weather and called up its author:

"Look here," the editor said. "You are predicting that it will snow on the tenth of July. In all of recorded history it has never snowed on the tenth of July."

"No," the author replied, "and it probably won't this year either - but if it does, I'll be the durndest prophet that ever lived!"

These people are so desperate to be superior to middle America that they make fantastic claims - and if any of them ever pans out they will, at least in their own minds, be amazing prophets.

Impromptus: On Dean and Company
National Review Online ^ | 7 Dec 2005 | Jay Nordlinger

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I notice your homepage features the Eisenhower "military-industiral complex" quote.

IMHO history, if not historians, has not borne out that warning. Certainly there is danger there, of course - but historically the greater danger has been an antidemocratic, antirepublican Establishment which presumes to say, not merely that the pen is mightier than the sword, but that the sword is irrelevant. Which is countered by John W. Gardner:

"The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will neither have good plumbing or good philosophy. Neither its pipes or its theories will hold water.”

That Establishment is variously pleased to call itself "objective journalism" and "the Democratic Party." Inasmuch as its foundational premise is that "the masses" have no will apart from the sway of propaganda, it is the furthest thing from democratic. And in promoting the fatuous conceit of its own objectivity while promoting its own material and moral interests, it is the furthest thing from objective.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1540286/posts?page=76

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Thank God there are still serious grownups somewhere in the media.

Absolutely. It's just a shame there aren't more of them and that they aren't more visible. Thank God, common sense still reigns somewhere.

It is thanks, primarily, to the FCC that the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal is so much less prominent than The New York Times and The Washington Post.

That is, broadcast journalism amplifies the perspective of the Times and the Post - and, for that matter, the news pages of The Wall Street Journal - and does not amplify that of the editorial page of the Journal.

It is easy - once you clear your mind of the hype - to understand why the Times and the Post might project the perspective that they do as a mere self-interested business decision. It is only necessary to ask whether it is easier to attract attention with headlines like "New House Built on Elm Street" or with headlines like "House on Elm Street Burns Down," and you have the answer to the question of why negativity is such a prominent feature of newspapers. Combine that negativity with the superficiality inherent in the need for new attention-getting stories which hype the importance of reading the newspaper, under deadline pressure, and the result inevitably is arrogance and cynicism toward the people/institutions which actually do things.

The sort of arrogance and cynicism which is the natural tendency of the newsman is precisely what motivates the "liberal" politician to bully the producers and the protectors of American society. There's not a dime's worth of difference between the reporter who inflates the importance of his craft by publicizing claims that an innocuous product like Alar is poisonous to children eating apples, and the liberal politician who seizes on such stories as a rationale for gaining political power. Nor between the reporter who insinuates that a police error which results in the death of a citizen is on a par with Saddam's torture chambers and Hillary Clinton announcing the guilt of police officers who six years ago were on trial for the death of a civilian. Officers who, BTW, were subsequently found not guilty by the jury.

So it is clear that journalism is a special interest which arrogantly proclaims its own virtuous objectivity but which has an inherent tendency to advocate for liberal politicians. Is this a brief for censorship of the press? Hardly. It is however a brief for clear understanding of the First Amendment, and a firm adherence to its principles.

Unlike the Second Amendment, which articulates a reason for its limitation (the right of the people . . . shall not be infringed) on government power, the First Amendment lists freedoms which the government is to respect as rights in and of themselves. Those rights are enumerated as follows:

• freedom from any government-imposeed religion
• freedom to exercise religion
• freedom of speech
• freedom of the press
• freedom of assembly
• freedom to petition the government

The Ninth and Tenth Amendments make plain that these rights are to be read expansively. I argue, first, that although the Internet did not exist at the time of the ratification the people have a right to use the Internet on a nondiscriminatory basis once it exists. FR, DU, and all - what one would have thought, in the days before McCain-Feingold, was an entirely unexceptionable position.

Second, I argue that "the press" includes newspapers which are uncensored. That means that what newspapers commonly call "editorials" may not only be published on the editorial pages, they may be positioned as "objective news" on the front page without legal recourse by people who may demand that they be restricted to the "editorial page."

Third, I point out the obvious fact that the government will arrest you if you broadcast without a license. To the applause of licensed broadcasters and of newspaper publishers. The First Amendment forbids the government from arresting you for publishing a newspaper without a license, or for speaking on a particular subject without a license, yet it is taken for granted that it may censor you from broadcasting. It is patent, therefore, that First Amendment freedoms have not been applied to broadcasting - and that the government is ultimately responsible for whatever is legally broadcast. Responsible, in what way? How is it appropriately to be held to account, and on what grounds?

I delineated all of the rights mentioned in the First Amendment so as to bring out the fact that there are similarities among the rights in the various sections. Freedom of assembly and of petition is scarcely to be distinguished from freedom of speech; if you have the right to talk about anything without restriction, you certainly have the right to talk about what the government is and is not doing, and what the government should and should not do. If you have the right to freedom of speech, you have the right talk about God - and hence to exercise your religion, at least verbally. And if the government may not require you to pay taxes for the support of a religion to which you do not subscribe, surely the government would be (is) wrong to benefit certain people for the purpose of promoting a political perspective to which you do not adhere.

It follows that tendentious programming of radio and TV is a responsibility for which the government generally and the FCC particularly should be held to account. There are in fact large matters in which tendentious programming has historically affected the nation. Those matters should be cause for legal action against the FCC and its offending licensees. It is a sticky situation but then, if the government is to presume to censor you it is responsible for the result.

One chronic example is the quadrennial broadcasting of the presidential election, which is a perfect example of the fact that not everything which interests the public is in the public interest. In the interests of the secret ballot, we accept laws against politicing at a polling place - yet we allow government licensees to discuss the results of elections in some states before the polls are closed in other states. And even to discuss the results of a state - eg, Florida - before all the polls are closed in that state. Discussion which, notoriously, resulted in a monthlong legal lash-up when turnout in 2000 part of Florida was suppressed during what was in fact an excruciatingly close election.

But although the FL 2000 example was uniquely egregious in its observable effects, the even more chronic effect of government censorship of broadcasting lies in the everyday amplification of the "liberal" perspective of the Times and the Post, to the near-exclusion of the conservative perspective. IMHO the proof of this effect is seen in the "TANG Memo" fraud. Patent forgeries were broadcast as fact in a blatant attempt to discredit the Republican presidential candidate during an election (which is exactly, be it noted, the sort of thing that McCain-Feingold presumes to prevent advertisers from doing). And not only did CBS perpetrate that fraud, and not only did it institute a kangaroo court to exonerate itself from tendentiousness in the case, but all other "objective" journalists went along with the gag.

Any journalist who had ever used a typewriter (as opposed to a word processing computer) had to know that CBS was perpetrating a fraud - yet no "objective" journalist - print or broadcast - stated that bald fact. Which only shows that all "objective" journalists are in cahoots to the extent that Objective Journalism^TM is an establishment which will never break ranks over the issue of the objectivity of its members.

The promotion of the interest of the arrogant, superficial, negative establishment known as "objective journalism" is not in the public interest because - although its members have equal rights to all other private citizens/organizations - it is a cabal whose particular interest is not identical to the public interest. Broadcast journalism, and the FCC which enables all of broadcasting, should be sued into oblivion. Right along with the Federal Election Commission.

Thank You for Wiretapping (WSJ Editorial - Nails It) Opinion Journal ^

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I want to get my kids (junior high and high school) caught up on the news.

My question would be, "Why would it be the business of the government school to 'get kids caught up in the news?'"

To me that is a serious issue; Big Journalism loads the dice on the issue of the meaning of the First Amendment of the Constitution. It's perfectly true, of course, that newspapers are part of "the press," but

• books and magazines are also part of "the press" and
• broadcast journalism is not part of the press.

If you question that last assertion, your challenge is to explain why the government can require you to get a license before you can broadcast journalism (or anything else) - whereas you can buy a printing press and make a newspaper without so much as a "by your leave" to the government.

The other First Amendment issue I would bring to your attention is that "the freedom of speech, [and] of the press" is not instrumental. The Second Amendment explains the public utility of the right to keep and bear arms; the freedoms enumerated in the First Amendment are in no way conditioned or even justified by public utility. IOW, the First Amendment doesn't say that exercising religion is good for government, or that petitioning the government is a public service - and it does not say that objective journalism is essential to good government.

To the contrary, the First Amendment stricture against "abridging the freedom of . . . the press" is a rejection of the idea that "the press" can be required to be objective. Where then did we get the idea that journalism has to be objective? The journalists told us so - we submitted to the massive propaganda campaign to the effect that it would be rude to question the objectivity of journalism.

It is inherently impossible to prove that journalism is objective, for the simple reason that "lack of bias" is an unprovable negative. But - contrary to the propaganda campaign touting the objectivity of journalism - the fact that something is inherently unprovable even if it were true is no substitute for proof that in fact it is true. To the contrary, it is arrogant to argue from your own claim of your own virtue. Which is precisely what journalism's claims of objectivity boil down to.

As a genre of nonfiction, journalism is defined by its deadlines. And that means that journalism is inherently superficial. And, partly for that reason, jounalism is negative - the typical surprising change from one day to the next is not the construction of a house but a house burning down. Which explains why whole cities can grow over a period of decades, even while the newspapers are talking only about houses burning down.

So journalism is arrogant in claiming to have the virtue of objectivity, journalism is negative, and journalism is superficial. It follows that rather than being an embodiment of the public interest, journalism is itself a special interest. And if journalism is a special interest, it is proper to inquire as to whether journalism is in fact independent of politics.

The question of political tendency in journalism, like the question of objectivity in journalism, is not to be answered by the self-interested pleading of arrogant, powerful journalism. In fact the association of political parties with journalism is a natural fit; as the organs which determine who has a good image and who is unknown, journalism attracts politicians as bees attract honey.

So the question is less whether journalism is political than it is which parties do what in order to get PR from journalism. And my answer to that question is my tagline:

The idea around which liberalism coheres is that nothing actually matters but PR.

The idea around which conservatism coheres is that the public interest is the Constitution and the laws enacted under it; liberalism considers that PR trumps everthing.

TEACHER NEEDS HELP EXPLAINING THE NSA "SPYING" STORY
1-1-06 | freedom4me

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The authors report that I was credentialed by the American Enterprise Institute, when in fact this is impossible, as a think tank cannot provide media credentials — this must be done by a recognized news organization. I was credentialed by The Weekly Standard and the Canadian talk-radio show The World Tonight . . .

The title and subheading of the article, "Bloggers, Money Now Weapons in Information War — U.S. Recruits Advocates to the Front, Pays Iraqi TV Stations for Coverage" clearly implies I am a tool of the military. And sandwiched between the mention of my embed and coverage from Iraq is a completely unrelated story on military-information operations, the Lincoln Group's activities in paying for positive articles to be published in Iraqi publications, and the military funding Iraqi radio stations.

The fundamental issue is about "credentials." What are press credentials?

The same issue arose over the man who was asking favorable questions at press conferences, and is of a piece with the claims of diplomatic immunity which are routinely advanced by journalists when they want to protect their sources.

The truth is, of course, that journalism is a profession, a business. The production of newspapers involves the use of the printing press, of course, and therefore has specific authorization under the Constitution and cannot be licensed by the government. Just as a public speaker's profession involves "speech" and therefore has specific authorization under the Constitution and cannot be licensed by the government. But while not everyone owns a press yet, we nearly all have tongues, and a great many of us do own PCs with printers - and anyone reading this has a PC and internet connection and is able to make a posting which is accessible to more people than even were alive in America at the time the First Amendment was ratified.

The obvious point of journalism's calling itself "the press" (as if book printing were not part of the press, and as if the First Amendment prevented the government from licensing broadcast journalists along with the entire medium of broadcasting) is to establish journalism as superior to the government and superior to we-the-people. Journalists are not content to be "of the people; they want to be a breed apart in law from people who give their allegiance to God and country.

Journalists publish "public opinion polls" claiming to articulate the voice of the people, and presume to say what the sovereign people of the United States do and do not "want." Yet the Constitution provides only for biannual elections to Congress and quadrennial elections to the presidency - and no other polls other than the decennial census. The people are sovereign, but their sovereignty is exercised only on election day, and the rest of time the sovereignty of the United States is exercised by our elected representatives.

Notwithstanding the pretensions of journalism, a news report as such is not evidence in court as to the facts it discusses. In the nature of things, a "public opinion poll" cannot have legal standing. And if a blogger is telling the truth, his not having "credentials" from The New York Times does not make it a lie - nor does having "credentials" from from The New York Times make the reports in the Times true.

If you want accurate reports on military matters, they are readily available from the US military. But reporters with "credentials" do not understand military affairs - and their contempt for the military's own reports merely assures that they will not accept the truth when it is staring them in the face. They are more interested in "independence" than they are in the truth.

Embedded Bias? [Re: Washington Post's hit piece on embedded bloggers]
National Review Online ^ | Jan 3, 2006 | Bill Roggio

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

What a thread! Excellent opening statement, and I could not agree more with your conclusions.

If you have only read the start of the thread, I think that you will be interested in additional analysis of journalism which is found in more recent postings toward the end.

Would it be possible to do a class action against a network for bias? ( I know that's probably in the thread somewhere.)

My proposal would be to sue both the FCC and its licensees. I insist that that suit should prevail on any fair reading of the Constitution - but I also admit that it would require that the Supreme Court overturn precedents which are in fact unconstitutional. Just as McCain-Feingold is unconstitutional, and the SCOTUS ruling sustaining it must ultimately be overturned if we are to retain/regain our full rights under the First Amendment.

The real problem of that suit would be the fact that people - including SCOTUS justices - find it hard to think outside the box which "objective" journalism systematically creates in peoples' minds with their self-aggrandizing propaganda. And the not-inconsiderable pressure that journalism can exert on the self-image of the SCOTUS justice . . . .

[A.Hun]

Thank you.

I insist that that suit should prevail on any fair reading of the Constitution - but I also admit that it would require that the Supreme Court overturn precedents which are in fact unconstitutional.

I believe it would be almost insurmountable with the mix currently on the court. However, if I am not mistaken, Roberts has expressed concern over the scope of the Interstate Commerce clause commonly employed. If a review of it happenened, and it was restricted, a suit like this would enjoy more of a chance.

A more tangible route (in the legal sense) to affect the media in general would be a close examination of the major foundations such as Pew and Ford. I have always wondered what leeway the original grants allowed on guidelines for philanthropy, what those guidelines were, and how closely held the board seats are held. I believe they are one of the worst influences on the media and the nation with their support for left causes and research mouthpieces, and may be vulnerable to scrutiny now. (Because of the current political climate.)

Just a thought and I will check out the rest of the thread. Thank you again.