The Market for Conservative-Based News

Free Republic | November 14, 2007 | conservatism_IS_compassion

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Is there any such animal as "conservative-based news?" IMHO there is not. At least, not that goes under the banner of "news."

In the Founding Era, newspapers were different from what we are used to today. Technologically, their inputs were more expensive and their output was very slow and meager. And they were all addressing small, local markets. They were mostly weeklies, and some had no deadline at all - the printer just went to press when he was good and ready. And they did not have telegraphed news.

IOW, the newspapers of the founding era were pretty much like the local freebie advertising weeklies we see today - which don't do national/international newswire stories because the presumption is that the customer has seen all that on TV, heard it on the radio, or seen it on the Internet just as quickly as the local printer saw it.

The linchpin of the difference between the modern journalist and the newspaper printer of the eighteenth century is that the modern journalist has the AP newswire - that is, his stock in trade is what he "magically" knows with amazing 200-year old technology which you do not know until he tells you. But of course the "amazing" newswire cannot hold a candle to the Internet, so the niche of the Associated Press newswire is by now an anachronism.

The AP, founded in 1848 as The New York Associated Press, aggressively monopolized the use of the telegraph to transmit news. And that raised the serious question of whether such a concentration of propaganda power was not dangerous to the republic. . . . now where have I heard that issue before? Oh yes, I remember - it came up when radio transmission was licensed by the FCC. And what was the answer then? Oh yeah - "Don't worry about a thing - we don't have any axe to grind, we are all objective journalists here." Well, it turns out that that argument, such as it is, was precisely what was used to justify the monopolistic Associated Press news service.

The claim of objectivity actually is an assault on the very premise that the public is competent to govern its own affairs and, via the "fairness doctrine" and more recently via "campaign finance reform," on the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press of those not "in the know" by virtue of being privy to the newswire. The claim of objectivity is essentially indistinguishable, as far as I can see, from a claim of wisdom - and arguing from a claim of superior wisdom is the essence of sophistry ("soph" being Greek for "wisdom").

That being the case, we-the-people have the right and the duty to assign the burden of proof for anyone's claim of objectivity squarely on the shoulders of the claimant. That is, we should not be embarrassed by their begging the question but should demand that they prove their case. Even were their claim true, of course, that is an impossible case to prove - essentially an attempt to prove a negative - but that does not suffice as an argument to prove that it is true. It even leaves open the possibility that proof that it is untrue could exist.

Yet how can we know if a fresh report, hot off the wire, is or is not objective? We actually cannot - but there is no necessary reason why that should be the criterion which we choose for judging claimed objectivity. We can wait. We can judge the stories which once were "hot off the wire" in the light of history. We can apply the biblical standard for testing authority:

"When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him. Deuteronomy 18:22, New American Standard Bible (©1995)

By the standard of the light of history, whole books can be written on the fact that journalism is not objective. See, for example, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right by Ann Coulter. Also see, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case by Stuart Taylor , KC Johnson. Another classic case of journalism run amok is the fraudulent "Killian Memos" promoted by Dan Rather and CBS News and never outted as a blatant fraud by the rest of "objective" journalism, a mountain of damning evidence notwithstanding.

And that last point illustrates how Big Journalism - Associated Press journalism - manipulates the public discourse. The system is quite simple - if some fact is not congenial to the worldview of the journalist, Big Journalism systematically stonewalls that fact and/or raises the standard of proof for that fact to the unattainable level of metaphysical certainty. As long as Big Journalism is able to control the standard of proof, the fatuous conceit that Big Journalism is objective will be unassailable. The fact that it has no basis in fact is irrelevant.

The question is, "Is there any significant venue in which Big Journalism does not control the standard of proof?" There are two possible avenues. First, the Internet has been eroding the business model of the Associated Press. The logical conclusion of which is that Big Journalism no longer has any real niche of information unavailable to the rest of us. The Wizard of Oz is being exposed as a mere mortal behind a curtain. Besides FR and the rest of the Internet, there is Rush and the rest of Talk Radio. And ultimately, the composition of SCOTUS remaining unchanged or improving, there is hope of success in not merely turning back further impositions such as McCain-Feingold and the revival of the Fairness Doctrine but of overturning McCain itself.

In any court case touching on the objectivity of journalism, the issue of the Clarence Thomas - Anita Hill hearing and the objectivity of Justice Thomas could be raised. But to raise that question against Justice Thomas would be to turn the issue on its head. The question is not, or certainly not so much, whether Thomas can be objective seeing that he does not read the newspapers as it is whether any of the other justices can be objective seeing that the do read the newspapers. If SCOTUS can hear the issue fairly, there is no question that the First Amendment not only does not assure that journalism generally and Big Journalism as we know it specifically is objective. The First Amendment forbids the government to require journalism to be objective.

Another question which naturally arises is, "What is the alternative to the status quo of journalism?" The status quo is, as I have pointed out, that journalism is:

• motivated by a common interest - the interest of promoting talk, and their position at the peak of the propaganda power pyramid. That means that journalism naturally tends to denigrate action and promote criticism. When Theodore Roosevelt noted that "it is not the critic who counts," he could have been looking straight at the press gallery.

• unified. It is Big Journalism; its members are linked via the Associated Press and by their common agenda noted above. Questions could rightly be raised about conspiracy in restraint of trade.

• Prone to sophistry. The question is not, "Why should they" engage in sophistry; the question is why anyone would assume that they would not engage in it.

There is a classical reaction to the position the Sophist. "You claim to be wise, and presume to denigrate anyone whose supposedly inferior wisdom you can ridicule. But you cannot prove your own wisdom, and your claim is therefore arrogant. I do not claim to be wise, but I admit that there is such a thing as wisdom and truth, and I am open to facts and logic because I love wisdom." The Greek word for someone who loves wisdom is philo (brotherly love) soph (wisdom, again) - "philosopher."

Who then is the sophist, and who the philosopher? Anyone who uses an advantage of power to control the debate and keep certain facts off the table (in the style of the "objective" journalist) is a sophist. Anyone who eschews ad hominem attacks and other propagandistic techniques, and who is open to the facts and logic pointed out from any quarter, is a philosopher. Your average FReeper, lacking any ability to control the debate, must perforce be a philosopher.

Of course the moderators of FR, and Jim Robinson, are in a position to be able to control the debate on FR, and actually they do. But their control extends only to FR in particular, and not the Internet generally - let alone to any of the so-called "mainstream media." And FR succeeds as a forum because in fact the moderators are not interested in manipulating the discussion but in appealing to what is in America conventionally called a "conservative" audience. Likewise Rush Limbaugh and the rest are in a position to be able to be what Rush calls "a benevolent dictator" of what is said on their shows. And likewise, those shows succeed or fail as they exercise that power in such a way as to appeal to a wide audience, or fail to.

Rush calls his format "the long form," by which he obviously means that the format does not depend on hit and run tactics. "The News" by contrast is a very stylized, stilted view. You are basically given the word, whether you like it or not. Nothing is on the table for discussion. Rush on the other hand takes calls, and debates with callers. His listeners would hear it if he were being manipulative with his callers, and he succeeds because his listeners do not hear that. A talk show host who allows a wide range of views to be expressed, and who focuses that discussion on current affairs, is addressing the "market for conservative-based news."

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3620123/posts?page=30#30

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3620123/posts?page=35#35