Do the math: Hugh Hewitt urges media sites to release readership stats

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Wednesday, December 8, 2004 | Hugh Hewitt

[JohnHuang2]

Hugh Hewitt MEGA PING!!

[Aeronaut]

Bump

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[B4Ranch]

Good morning, John

Thanks for the ping.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

For the most part, the news coverage remains fairly straight. But the editorial pages are now as sharply to the Left as they once were to the Right. And just as before, they cost the paper credibility.

Hewlett debunks that by reference to "straight news" reporting by the Times suggesting that Arizona was a "swing state." The more fundamental critique is, however, that all journalism suffers from three biases:

• Superficiality inherent in writing to a deadline,
• Negativity, inherent in story selection motivated by the need to attract attention, and
• Arrogance, inherent in a posture of assuming their own wisdom (i.e., their own "objectivity."

A reader who does not discount journalism for all of those biases is simply not a critical reader. And if that is a problem with printed newspapers, the same problem exists - doubled and in spades - in broadcast journalism.

Broadcast journalism is unnecessary, in that the Republic was designeed to work very well without it. And broadcast journalism is illegitimate in that, unlike the (literal) press - which includes books as well as journalism - broadcasting depends on censorship for its existence. The FCC gives you the right to listen to any local broadcaster - and the duty to shut up so as to not interfere with anyone else's right to listen. It is the First Amendment stood on its head.

All journalism is politics, and journalism is most political when it claims to be objective. The Constitution defines the public interest, and broadcast journalism does not fit in the First Amendment framework of political discussion. Broadcast journalism obscures that fact by asiduously fitting in with the coloration of mass-market print journalism, but that just goes to show that broadcast journalism is unnecessary. One NY Times per country is enough, and it must be considered that electronically amplifying it may be too much.

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

[E.G.C.]

Media bias bump.

[beyond the sea]

Times editorial pages are devotedly biased and are going to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

From 'Grease' -- 'Hopelessly Devoted to You'

I know I'm just a fool

who's willing

To sit around and wait for you

But baby can't you see

There's nothing else for me to do

I'm hopelessly devoted to you

*****

The Times will never change until there are no more bird cages to protect.

[beyond the sea]

Danke for the pingeroo.

:-)

[ajolympian2004]

Hugh Hewitt is becoming one of my favorite nationally syndicated talk show hosts in the country. It's intellectual talk radio, much like Mike Rosen on KOA 850am and Dan Caplis on KHOW 630am, both here in Colorado.

Hugh promotes freedom and liberty each day by mentioning those new media patriots in the blogoshpere every chance he gets.

Thanks Hugh!

As Sean Hannity (and Bill Cunningham) says, "you are a great American!"

[maica]

So, which will be the first paper to publish the traffic of their columnists on a weekly basis?


%%%%%


Publishing these numbers would be a great project for an aspiring investigative reporter. These ratings are obviously known to the management of the papers, ---and are much more closely guarded than the Grand Jury testimony of major league ballplayers, for example.

[PGalt]

Thanks for the post; bump!

[jigsaw]

...the Old Media, also known as MSM or "legacy" media,...

aka, the BDM or Blue Dress Media

[Valin]

Publishing these numbers would be a great project for an aspiring investigative reporter.

And will happen about 10 mins. after pigs fly out of my butt. In addition to the french looking candidate, the big loser in this last election was the MSM.

[Patterico]

Guys, I am Patterico, the blogger Hugh mentions in his column who writes about the bias of the Los Angeles Dog Trainer, which some people call the Los Angeles Times. I also helped expose the lies told by NPR and Media Matters about Buckhead and the CBS fake documents incident and interviewed TankerKC regarding that incident. I now need your help. I am in an online blog contest, and I am losing to a liberal named Michael Totten. I am hoping that you guys will come to my aid and vote for me. You can do so by clicking on this link. Please show that Freepers won't let a liberal win a contest like this.

[EllaMinnow]

I just voted for you. Good luck!

[Patterico]

Thanks! The rules allow voting once per day per computer, and the contest lasts another five days, so please remember to vote again! I appreciate it.

[showme_the_Glory]

Publishing these numbers would be a great project for an aspiring investigative reporter.

Performance Based Pay?????????? Actual readers = $

[RonDog]

On Monday, Bill Bennett wrote a great column for RealClearPolitics, which included a kind plug for my website, but which was widely noted in the blogosphere because of Bennett's recognition of the rise of the New Media... - Hugh Hewitt

That would be THIS thread:

Bill Bennett: "Wither The Mainstream Media?"
Real Clear Politics ^ | 12/6/2004 | William Bennett
Posted on 12/06/2004 6:04:36 PM PST by macbee

Wither The Mainstream Media?
By William Bennett

In many ways—especially from the views of Blackrock, 30 Rock, and Times Square —President George W. Bush should not have been re-elected: the economy was in less than stellar shape; images of terrorism and death from Iraq flooded the news coverage; civilians were being kidnapped and beheaded; President Bush did not acquit himself well in the presidential debates; and Osama bin Laden gave us a long-awaited (and, in some cases, long-unexpected) proof-of-life days before the election. And, yet, instead of George W. Bush packing up his office this December and January, Dan Rather announced that he will be packing up his, Tom Brokaw has delivered his last broadcast, and the New York Times is, well, one wonders….

What happened? Many things, from the values of rural Kansas proving more widespread than the values of urban Massachusetts, to the precedent that presidents are not voted out of office during war-time. But there is something more, and it has to do with the continuing decline of the mainstream media that has been taking place concomitantly with the rise of a new media; a media that is not confined to one specific headquarters or address, a media that—while more diverse in race, gender, religion, and politics than the mainstream headquarters’ personnel—shares the common address suffixes dot com, dot org, dot net and AM. the Internet combined with talk-radio...

CLICK HERE for the rest of that thread

.

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Please post your comments, and BUMP!

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[ForGod'sSake]

Again, if the folks at the Tribune Company are serious about stopping the bleeding, ask for Internet traffic stats on the Times' editorials and columnists.

Even those numbers would be skewed because of "excerpt" posting on sites like FR of most of the MSM's rantings, requiring one to click on the MSM site to look a the whole roll of toilet paper. Since many/most of these pieces are posted for the sole purpose of being debunked, it's a Cache[;^)] 22. Not unlike the "free" hard copies delivered to vacant lots, dumpsters, etc.

Now, whether they're actually interested in stopping the bleeding is a moot point. But somebody within the organization has got to be scratching their heads. In the words of Tom Brokaw(?), maybe they're "managing the decline"? Where are the shareholders of the Trib? They're acting like taxpayers instead of owners!

And this from Ken Reich: "For the most part, the news coverage remains fairly straight.", leads me to wonder if maybe there's koolaid in the water fountains at the LATimes, the effects of which takes some time to wear off.

FGS