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.