Posted on 05/25/2008 4:04:16 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
And now the Internet has, pretty much at a stroke, begun the elimination of all those problems and a return to Jefferson’s vision.
The telegraph was a doorway through the wall of distance as a barrier to communication. Since it was only a doorway because of the expense of its limited bandwidth, the telegraph enabled gatekeepers to exploit that doorway - and actually, in a real sense, to promote ignorance by using the superficial to distract us from the significant.The internet has subverted the business model of the gatekeeper by radically slashing the effect of distance as a communication barrier. "There's not much in being a gatekeeper when the walls are down." And we find ourselves yelling at people to look and see that the emperor, Big Journalism, actually has no clothes. The conceit of journalistic objectivity is undoubtedly still being taught as fact in schools. But I think our grandchildren will see through that con a lot more clearly than our contemporaries and our children do.
Of course if abb is correct and network news dies, we'll see an accelerating trend of even adults getting the word.
Good thread.
I think Oprah may have "jumped the shark" by coming out for Obama. She may never recover her status and prestige especially if Obama were to win, and thereby be given enough rope to hang himself - removing all doubt that he is the second coming of Jimmy Carter.And that would be a watershed for the public's awareness that you can't take an "objective" person's word to the bank.
Many of those skulls full of liberal mush, who are no longer fit to participate in vigorous discussion, and who are past the age of the teenagers who "grew up with it", can be turned off the internet by the drive by media decrying the abundance of misinformation thereon.
But the rest of us, including most of the young ones, and most of those who aren't yet brain dead, trust something on the internet, some particular sites or groups of people that makes sense to us.
We vary in how much we venture out into the "rest of" the internet and make sense of it; but that's a sign of a healthy diversity, and of the varied and limited resources we each bring to this discussion.
The alternative, some enforcement of "scientific web posting", on the internet would be the death knell of the burst of freedom that the internet has introduced.
Be careful of Chernow. I've read his bios of John D. Rockefeller and the (JP) Morgan family. He has a decided collectivist bias. It's for the "Greater Good," you see.
You actually believe that there was some golden age of honesty in the print media, or some other one? When was it?
I’ll gladly take Thomas Jefferson slinging mud at his opponents, and there were others who were more ruthless, and would sink to greater depths, than he.
...There is also another point (albeit a negative one) that has also caused the News Industry to erode: Arrogance.
When an organization of people believes only their 'brand' of information is 'authentic', 'accurate', and 'legitimate' as is the mindset of the MSM within the Manhattan/Los Angeles circles, and entities such as Fox News, Talk Radio, and the Blogs are seen as unwelcome 'intruders', there's a huge problem, not to mention the swollen egos that go along with it.
Show me where I said that. I said I don't like lying two-faced politicians and Jefferson was one in spades.
When an organization of people believes only their 'brand' of information is 'authentic', 'accurate', and 'legitimate' as is the mindset of the MSM within the Manhattan/Los Angeles circles, and entities such as Fox News, Talk Radio, and the Blogs are seen as unwelcome 'intruders', there's a huge problem, not to mention the swollen egos that go along with it.
Well of course, the arrogance of which you speak is the natural consequence of being in a powerful organization which gets to criticize to powerful effect ("buying ink by the carload") while no one whom you criticize has a similar platform from which to reply.And that is the Associated Press (including the membership thereof) in a nutshell.
I agree with your comment from another thread regarding legal action against the AP.
Forcing news agencies to provide disclaimers warning the audience not to expect objectivity would go a long way toward solving the problem.
News agencies exist to promote the conceit that they are objective, and that it is important to pay attention to them. It is difficult to visualize the precise wording and positioning they should be required to put out in the disclaimer you suggest.But I do think it would be delicious to have the TV reporters on election night announcing that they have in the past tended to overestimate the vote for Democratic candidates. And I think that is the key - not just disclaiming objectivity but specifically confessing the bias in favor of Democrats which they have demonstrably exhibited.
Don't you just know that the anchorman would look like he was sucking a lemon when he said that!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.