Why Journalists Are Not Above the Law

In Dec. 2001, federal law enforcement officers were preparing to raid the offices and seize the assets of the Holy Land Foundation and Global Relief Association - two Islamic "charities" with links terrorist organizations. Two New York Times reporters, Judith Miller and Philip Shenon, acting on confidential information from a source inside a federal grand jury telephoned officials of the two foundations and asked them questions that had the effect of tipping them off to the impending investigation. A convincing argument can be made that in ferreting out secret information from a grand jury, and in placing telephone calls to criminal suspects on that basis they endangered us all. Where protecting the country from terrorism is at stake, the public interest may reside in NARROWING access to information, and not broadcasting it to terrorist fundraisers and the public at large.

Bookmarked.This entire article is dead on, and important.
Read it all. I picked this gem:
The claim that [Judith] Miller, or any other journalist in similar circumstances, had no choice but to go jail is, therefore, specious in the extreme, a rationalization put forward by spokesmen of the establishment media in their own effort to gain and maintain their privileges and powers. These they require not in order to report the news but rather, it would appear, to ratify their self-proclaimed position as the arbiters and shapers of American opinion. In the performance of that role, they fancy, their exalted position should place them beyond the reach of American law.
I would add that the broadcast licenses which empower CBS et al to report in a way that you and I are forbidden to are of a piece with the special priviledge after which journalists lust in their pleading for "shield laws" for reporters.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

Journalists are notoriously biased and subject to human error. They aren't infallible and shouldn't be above the law.

IMHO there are two ways to look at the issue of "bias". First, the journalist is unaware of their own bias and simply produces biased reports naturally. -OR- secondly the journalist uses the profession as a front to create ad copy (sow fear uncertainty and doubt) used to promote their political client (DNC).

If the the second scenario is true (which I happen to believe and observation supports), then the concept of "bias" is misleading in that it never addresses the real issue which is the MSM are not in anyway affiliated with objective journalism/news reporting but instead are a network of marketing firms, as unobjective as they can be for their client.

"bias" to me is a term perpetuated by the left which serves to A) frustrate conservatives (time and energy wasted) B) hide the true nature of their business model: Marketing Firm (with DNC as their single political client)

Pretty brilliant of them in an evil kind of way if you ask me.

Your Pal,
Eddie01

IMHO it is a subtle combination of the two explanations: Journalists are undoubtedly, like most of us, able to compartmentalize enough that they do not actually realize the implication of their own perspective. They are taught that "If it bleeds, it leads," to report on "Man Bites Dog" and not on "Dog Bites Man" - and to always make deadline. Those things will help make their newspaper profitable. Now if anyone other than a journalist (or other member of the complaining professions, such as plaintiff bar, unionist, etc.) said anything which was predicated on the assumption that whatever was good for their business was good for the country, journalists would come down on that person like the hounds of Hell. But journalists have internalized the idea that their business is uniquely important to the national interest. So they have systematically blinded themselves to the fact that a self-interested perspective is embedded in those rules of journalism.
And being unable to see their own perspective hiding in plain sight, journalists do not see their own perspective when other complainers project the same perspective. To them it isn't a perspective, it's just what is - the natural order of things. Journalists assign positive labels to everyone who projects journalism's arrogant, negative, superficial perspective - other journalists are "objective," and simpatico non journalists are "liberal" or "moderate" or "progressive." Journalists don't think of those "liberals" as clients, they just think of them as right minded people just like themselves. People who could get a job as a journalist tomorrow, and in that instant would become "objective."

Bias is indeed misleading, since journalists (at least print journalists) have an unambiguous right to have and print their own perspective. That is not a bias - but the fact that they actually think they are objective is a screaming bias if there can ever be said to be such a thing.

It is exactly the case that journalists prefer to be charged with "bias." They can respond in high dudgeon that you have insulted them. If you point out their perspective, that is less of an option for them. It means the same thing operationally, of course . . .

Here is where I get hung up. I understand what you are saying, but I make the following observation. The "stories" the MSM produce follow a formula that is exactly the formula used to create ad copy for a consitant set of benefactors. Coincidence?

If you turn on CNN right now and listen, you will hear the "report" sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt regarding Bush administration policy or that of any conservative. There is never a report that puts the administration or conservative POV out there without challenge and a clear attempt to discredit.

That is in actual effect - Marketing

So they have systematically blinded themselves to the fact that a self-interested perspective is embedded in those rules of journalism.

I read this as the charlatans of "big journalism" have systematically corrupted the budding journalists via threat of osticization into ignoring fundamental objectivity for group acceptance, all the while unaware that they have been turned into pitchmen no different than Ron Popeil or Chef Tony for the DNC.

Regardless of the mechanisms/controls used to create the facade of objective journalism, at the end of the day it's ad copy approved at the highest levels enthusistically presented by spokespersons for the ads benefactor. Without the expectation of objectivity on behalf of the charlatans (MSM executives and in the loop pitchmen such as Chris Matthews, Keith Olberman, Andrea Mitchell, et al.), why should wethepeople expect objectivity and especially those of us on the right who are harmed by the 24/7 infomercial promoting our political competitors?

If no objectivity exists or is expected, the concept of "bias" can not exist either.

By thinking in this way, the hand wringing over "bias" disappears and the belief that the MSM has any jounalistic credibility dissapates opening minds to the possibility that the other side, MY SIDE, has a legitimate point to make encouraging a much needed reconsideration of assumptions, many of which originally set in place by liberal indoctrination.

This re-evaluation of assumptions and possible awakening to the truth is what the left fears the most... and will as you note, cause the left to come down on those suggesting -The entire MSM network is nothing more than the marketing arm of the DNC - like hounds of hell.

The strategy is sound if only there was a coordinated effort to get the message out. However, MRC, Newsbusters and Limbaugh have tied perpetuating the flawed expectation of objectivity through the continued use of the word "bias" to large revenue streams so that now it appears we have conservative icons actually doing more harm than good.

We need a sea change in perspective if we ever expect to win over more hearts and minds.

Eddie01

That is in actual effect - Marketing

That, once seen, is obvious. Of course when you see someone marketing, you naturally are drawn to the question of who is paying the marketer, and in what coin. A marketer can pay another marketer - for example, a radio station can advertise a newspaper - and may perhaps be paid not in money but by reciprocal advertising. As the newspaper might then advertise the radio station. Both are marketers, but they can cooperate to the extent that each is in a niche which does not compete with the other.
What is more remarkable, though, is when nominally direct competitors visibly avoid explicit competition. Thus while I can understand ABC cooperating to an extent with The Washington Post, what explains the observable cooperation, or at a minimum the absence of explicit competition, between ABC and CBS? What is apparent is the existence of a guild mentality which is universal in Big Journalism.
It is the guild against dissent from guild orthodoxy. The orthodoxy seems to me to be most directly explicable by the fact that it promotes the guild. And best characterized by competition of the guild to be the top of the pecking order. Charles E. Wilson was chairman of GM back in the fifties when President Eisenhower nominated him to be SecDef. Back then the conflict of interest rules were not onerous, and it was not a novelty for the chairman of GM to think he could be SecDef while holding a substantial bloc of GM stock. But when Wilson was asked about the potential for conflict of interest involved in his retaining that stock, he replied that "What's good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa."
Well! That caused a firestorm! Of course it was not unreasonable to say that what was good for America - General Motors' customers, after all - was good for General Motors. But "vice versa?" That was unacceptable. That would imply that General Motors defined the public interest. And Big Journalism went wild. They always turned the quote, having Wilson simply saying "What's good for General Motors is good for the country." Even though that meaning exists in "vice versa," that was not a true quote but it was the way Big Journalism quoted it, and what Big Journalism vociferously attacked.
It is true that attacking the chairman of GM was the socialist thing to do, but the attack on GM as the definition of the public interest also is perfectly explicable as an essential part of promoting Big Journalism as the definition of the public interest. Complaining about anyone who does significant things instead of just criticizing others is inherently socialist, and inherently provides fodder for journalism.
The fundamental principle of management is the unification of responsibility and authority. A.k.a., "you don't blame anyone for anything they could not control." And you do credit people for the good things they did control. Well, people who don't do anything but second guess the people who actually do things have a natural tendency to try to arrogate authority, while not being willing to touch responsibility with a ten foot pole.
The classic definition of socialism is "government ownership of the means of production." Which simply amounts to government and the leaders thereof taking credit for the development of the product being produced as well as for the effort which went into making the means of producing it (which is after all intimately entangled. It does you no good to invent a flying carpet if you have no way of producing it). But while taking credit for successes, the socialist has no interest in blame for the failures, arrogantly dismissing them as aberrations. When in fact there is no such thing as unmitigated success unmarked by failure.
Having gotten to the top by criticizing and second guessing, the socialist leader is singularly unsuited to actually getting things done. He is naturally averse to risk because someone else will second guess if things don't work as planned.

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