The Market for Conservative-Based News

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.

The "objective" propagandists NEVER have to prove their case. They do not subject themselves to scrutiny from anyone at anytime. That is fine because as evidence of their methods permeates your senses from your (or others) observations, you would rather jettison them than confront them. Life is short.

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.

BUMP!

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.

Captured the essence of the change taking place by FReepers and non-FReepers! BUMP-TO-THE-TRUTH!

OUTSTANDING!

Very interesting philosophical discussion. My philosophy is that we ought to oppose leftism on the very fundamental philosophical level:

"philosophy" means "love of" (philo) "wisdom" (sophy).

"sophistry" means wisdom.
The sophist argues from the assumption of his own wisdom, resulting in the trivial argument, "I am wise and you are not. You disagree with me. Therefore you are wrong." The philosopher replies, "I do not claim to be wise, but I love wisdom and am ready to hear your facts and your logic. But not your claims to superior virtue which you cannot prove."
It is my opinion that journalism as we have known it all our lives is not something which always existed, but something which is an artifact of the telegraph and the monopolistic Associated Press. In the founding era papers were often weeklies, or even irregularly published - and therefore did not deliver news any faster than you could get it by word of mouth. With the advent of the high speed printing press the printers had bandwidth they needed to fill, and became aggressive in pursuing news stories to fill up space. The AP filled that need admirably - and gave the news editor sources which the general public did not have access to.
When the editor had that, he was in a position to talk down to the reader, and he used his propaganda power to promote the conceit that journalism is "objective." Note that I did not say that the editor said he was objective and other journalists were not - it is critical to understand that journalism in general had to be set up on a pedestal because they all have the same source and are essentially fronts for the Associated Press. At root, journalism as we know it is a monopolistic enterprise - the establishment in America, if that term has any meaning at all.
There is no proof - no way to prove - that journalism is objective. The lack of bias is an unprovable negative, and the con of the journalist is that the fact that it couldn't be proved if it were true shows that we must assume that in fact it is true. It would be impolite to say otherwise, just as it would be impolite to say that a woman is immoral just because she cannot prove that she did not sleep with twenty different men last year. But the situations are not comparable because

claiming to be objective is logically very similar to claiming to be wise (is there any such thing as "unwise objectivity?"), and that means that the journalist's claim of objectivity puts me at an unfair disadvantage if I disagree with the journalist about something important.

there is evidence that the claim of journalistic objectivity is false.
First, assuming that you are objective is the very essence of subjectivity. Second, journalism claims to be not only objective but important, and yet journalism does not do things but only criticizes those who do. Theodore Roosevelt said that "It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . ." But journalism not only criticizes the doer, it praises the fellow critic by applying the positive labels "liberal" and "progressive" to him.
And third, of course, is the historical record of cases where journalism has promoted - often, continues to promote - notions which are provably false. It was patent from the beginning that Michael Nifong was abusing his office when he tried the Crystal Mangum charges in the newspaper. It was patent from the moment that Dan Rather made his "Killian memos" charges that, having only copies and not originals of the putative memos, and no chain of custody for them, CBS could not possibly know that the "memos" were authentic - and it was very quickly demonstrated that it was extremely improbable that the documents had been produced on a machine which even existed at the time the "memo" putatively were written. And on and on; one could go down the list of charges of bias which Ann Coulter lays and documents in Slander.
In sum, leftism is simply criticism and second guessing of the doer by those who take no responsibilty for results. It is supported by the propaganda power of a monopolistic news industry which selectively throws data at us in a confusing cloud to obscure the lack of evidence for the wisdom of its worldview, and is comfortable making baseless ad hominum arguments. Journalism as we know it is inherently leftist - and leftism is sophistry.
Natural Law and Child Abuse American Thinker ^ | November 24, 2007 | Ed Kaitz

The fundamental fallacy under which most Americans labor is the fatuous conceit that journalism is, or even should be, objective. That is the product of the biggest propaganda campaign in history, far longer in extent than Goebbels was able to muster. It has been going on so long that memory of man runneth not to the contrary - indeed, that was already true before most of us were even born. It started back in 1848 with the founding of the Associated Press, which quickly established a telegraph news distribution monopoly which was obviously a propaganda colossus, and was challenged on that basis. But it deflected criticism of its monopoly status by claiming that the Associated Press was (all say it together now, class) "objective."
The telegraph and the the AP "wire" transformed the newspaper business. Founding Era newspapers were openly opinionated, with Jefferson and Hamilton each sponsoring a paper to attack the other. And early newspapers were frequently weeklies rather than dailies, and some had no deadline at all and just went to press when they were good and ready. In fact they most resembled our modern local freebie weeklies, which also assume that you get distant news from some other source by the time you see their publications.
The claim of journalistic objectivity is fatuous because the one thing journalism is in favor of is that journalism be assumed to be important. That is its underlying bias, and that explains the fact that reporters and journalistic organs do not question each others' objectivity. They are unified on the importance of their business, far more fundamentally than they are competitive about anything. The reality is that, most days, if you pick up a newspaper in a library from the same date five year earlier you won't remember anything in it because nothing of lasting significance was reported that day. Most days, the most significant thing that happens is all the routine work that the tens of millions of employed people in the country did that day - none of which is ever going to be reported in a newspaper.
So even in the unlikely event that the newspaper contains no outright falsehoods on a given day, it will be a half truth because it systematically ignores the big picture. And that makes the conceit that journalism is objective absurd. The only "evidence" for that conceit is the opinion of journalists that journalists are objective - and belief in your own objectivity is the very essence of subjectivity.
Hillary ClintonÂ’s corruption and the mainstream mediaÂ’s treason
Brookes News ^ | 19th November 2007 | Gerard Jackson

"the Iraq War" was over the moment Saddam Hussein was captured and the rest has just been post-war pacification. However, the media no longer lets someone like Bush (or a Republican, anyway) declare victory. Today's Western media and intelligentsia seem to refuses to acknowledge that any nation from the West can win a war. They will insist on perennial quotes around "win".

So Bush could not have successfully "declared" the "Iraq War" over when it actually achieved its objective (ousting Saddam Hussein), and can not do so now. The media dominate perceptions of when it's "over", unfortunately.

I dislike the formulation, "the media" for two reasons. First, although the entertainment media such as fictional TV and fictional films are in fact "liberal," there is actually no point to complaining about fiction not being true. And nonfiction books are not the problem. And that leaves journalism as the actual culpable villain of the piece. Second, the term "media" is a plural noun and - as Rush is wont to say - if you have heard one news outlet you have heard them all, but if you miss Rush who else is going to tell you what he would? So the formulation I prefer is the singular term, "Big Journalism."
And why is Big Journalism singular, why does it speak with one voice? The answer is bound and gagged, and lying on your doorstep. Big Journalism is singular because the Associated Press is singular. Full Stop. The bias of Big Journalism is that the news services are objective, and the bias of the news services is that the news services are objective.
And since arguing from the assumption of one's own objectivity is the very definition of subjectivity, Big Journalism is a baying example of hubristic arrogance which calls itself "objective." And which calls in nonjournalists any reflection of its own perspective, not "objective" but "liberal" or "progressive" or "moderate."
The bias of Big Journalism is not only its belief in its own objectivity but its belief that its product - mere talk, criticism, and second guessing - is more important than action. Journalists think that journalism is more important than growing food and distributing food, or producing and distributing electrical power, or producing and distributing fuel, or producing security by the police and the military.
Big Journalism - and its "liberal" fellow travelers who are not in the journalism professsion but who in principle can become "objective" journalists simply by changing hats (as George Stephanopolis did) - reject the idea that the military knows more about fighting, or the fuel companies know more about delivering fuel, than journalists do. On the grounds that journalists are objective, and journalists have access to the newswire.
Consequently Big Journalism rejects the possibility of military success - or economic success - under the leadership of a president who is not "liberal."
Happy Xmas, your war is over! http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article563496.ece ^

Once upon a time, journalism WAS an honorable profession, especially as practiced at highly reputable newspapers like the Atlanta Constitution and (believe it or not) the New York Times. Then there were the great reporters on the television networks, as exemplified by Edward R Murrow.

With all due respect, that sounds exactly like a fairy tale. And I don't mean only the "Once upon a time" part.
In reality, journalism in the founding era was more like a modern local weekly rag than anything else. Most newspapers were weeklies, and some had no deadline at all and simply went to press when the printer was good and ready. And like the modern local weekly, the founding era newspaper printer took for granted that its readers would have heard the latest news by the time they ever got around to reading a week-old newspaper. Hamilton and Jefferson sponsored competing newspapers in which they waged their partisan battles against each other; I see that as the embryonic stage of political parties in America.
And then came the high speed printing press, and the telegraph and the Associated Press. The high speed printing press was hungry for content to fill its new bandwidth, and the telegraph was just the ticket for providing it. The Associated Press aggressively worked to attain and maintain a monopoly on the telegraphic transmission of commercial news. All very efficient. It was of course noticed at the time that the Associated Press was potentially a centralized propaganda operation, and questions were raised about it. But the AP defended itself by pointing out that its component newspapers were of all different sorts and persuasions, and asserted that it was "objective."
The reality is that journalism is a special interest, the business of persuading the public to pay attention to itself and its advertisers on the basis that journalism - with its "wire" - has information that the public does not yet know. But the reality is also that the information which fits that category is inherently superficial. The newswire tells you in lavish detail about the house that burned down yesterday, but it doesn't mention all the work contractors did on houses yesterday. Consequently after a few years of the papers telling you only that houses are burning down, you may wake up one morning and realize that an entire city has been built.
Journalism is an artificial reality in which journalists are heroes and the people who produce and distribute the food, fuel, security, and other goods and services you depend on are suspects or villains. In the real world Theodore Roosevelt is correct that
"It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena - Theodore Roosevelt
In the artificial reality of journalism, it is just the opposite. In JournalismWorld, people who second guess are heroes who should be in charge of everything. The planted axiom of JournalismWorld is socialism.
In the real world the correct definition of subjective should be, "having a belief in one's own objectivity." There never was a golden age of objective journalism, only a golden age of propaganda success of the newswire monopoly which I like to call Big Journalism. If you read Ann Coulter's Treason, you will come to understand that the term "McCarthyism" is simply a smear of a patriot (albeit not necessarily a more perfect person than, say, yourself).
Dan Rather's behavior during and since the "Killian memo" flap is inexplicable unless you understand that it is simply the standard operating procedure of "objective" journalism. The only reason it didn't work - the only reason Rather is not Cronkite, and John Kerry is not POTUS - is that the Internet and Talk Radio have broken down the walls between you and me and the sources of news. Cronkite could count on the support of the rest of Big Journalism to prevent a critical mass of knowledge of the truth from developing in the general public which would have made a wide public aware of journalism's tendentiousness. Rather counted on the same thing, and his fellow gatekeepers at NBC, ABC, The New York Times, et al did not let him down but followed right where he was leading. The only trouble was, gatekeepers are irrelevant when the walls are down. Some people - a lot of people, actually - are still restricting themselves to the gates, out of habit. But others have the sense to realize what the gatekeepers have been up to, and go through the hole in the wall instead.
Rather's Ruin and the Rise of the Pajamahadeen
Unfettered 'citizen journalism' too risky
Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | December 13, 2007 | David Hazinski

I will say this.

If you are a Media Company your News Division should be a loss leader. If it’s not, you aren’t providing enough news or you are not relevant enough. I should be able to read (if I want to), what kind of gum was passed out to the line at the concert I was at (or my kid). If it’s not Pajama media will grow (yay) because of increased connectivity.

Do not Editorialize your News. I paid for your friggen paper just like the other guy. Consign your insulting me to something discretionary in nature, or else I will just decline you totally. This goes both ways

I really don’t care about your writers views on things beyond the topic they are covering. This crap annoys me to no freggin end with sports writing. I am tired of the whole Workers of the World Unite deal when it comes to people who makes millions of dollars.

To me the issue is not some illusory "right to know" but actually a fundamental philosophical question. Do we actually assume that anyone is objective? When we are children we go to school, and teachers inculcate certain things in us. Math teachers show the logic and the proofs of theorems, and we are supposed to understand the premises and learn the implications of the assumptions involved. English teachers tell us about the parts of speech and the Objective Case, and so on. Health teachers tell us about nutrition, sanitation, first aid, and bodily functions. Traditional knowledge, all fine and good.
The problem comes in when history and especially modern history and civics comes into the picture. History is political in important respects. How much sympathy is accorded to whom? How much attention is accorded to whom? Who, if anyone, is assumed to be objective?
IMHO journalism is a system of exploiting the "new technology" of the high speed press and the telegraph and the radio and TV to practice on the credulity of the public. This effort is assisted by the public schools, which teach that journalism is objective. Once clear your head of all that propaganda, and you realize that you have the right to your own opinions, the right to speak and to spend money and time to try to promote your opinions, and the right to decide who you will pay attention to and who you will ignore.
That is all. You do not have the right to the truth; nobody is obligated to tell you what kind of gum was passed out at a concert. And if that is all you care about, you will have to investigate it yourself, all the while ignoring everyone who tries to tell you about what they care about.

Rush is the best. I can’t believe he “only” has 25 million listeners. You’re right, it should be double.

The reason is quite simple:

In the middle of the Nineteenth Century, journalism came into being. We had had a "press" before, of course - but it was only with the advent of the telegraph and the Associated Press that "the press" published daily (or even more frequently) and the press had information that the public at large did not have access to. Before that, "newspapers" were mostly weeklies, and printers got their news from the same travelers that the public did.
So journalism as we know it didn't exist in the founding era. Instead of presuming to be objective, newspapers were openly opinionated until the 1830s, when the high speed press made mass marketing of newspapers practical, instead of the older presses whose smaller runs could be tailored to niche markets of people who wanted particular perspectives in their newspapers. But it was the AP which monopolized the telegraphy of news. And, being an obviously dangerous monopoly, the AP had to defend itself by proclaiming itself to be "objective," and all the newspapers using the AP had to fall in line.
So the AP was the engine of the homogenization of the perspective projected by "the press." And why is that perspective leftist? The nature of the news business is to hype itself, mere talk, at the expense of those it reports on - the people and institutions which get things done. Second guessing those who perform to a bottom line and promoting critics who scapegoat and evade responsibility to any bottom line is what socialism is all about.

Conservatives like Rush naturally have an audience because they point out that the emperor Objective Journalism has no clothes, and that as a way of running things socialism is a paper tiger. But just as naturally, most people refuse to hear anyone who points those things out.

It is true that AP and the telegraph (1848) advanced the concept of "objectivity" by focusing on "facts" instead of opinion per se.

1) Remember, ALL newspapers were "partisan" and supported either the Democrats or the Whigs prior to 1850. They were blatant, they were overt, and by one account 80% of GA papers were demonstrably pro-one party or the other. The other 20% were mostly "advertisers" which focused on business (but even then had an agenda).

2) Still, even with the telegraph (which really didn't connect a great deal until the late 1850s), that didn't change newspaper reporting.

3) What changed reporting was the Civil War. It had nothing to do with the "chain of control," or anything like that---it had everything to do with the public's demand for facts as opposed to opinions and rhetoric. Remember, up until 1861, news writing was incredibly flowery and long-winded. The war changed that, and introduced the "inverted pyramid" of writing: most important facts first. What the telegraph did was to further refine that because of the need to economize on words, sort of like Pat Summerall calling a football game: ("to the 40, 30, 20. Touchdown, Dallas.") I have in my book an example of the Confederate "information" officer---the guy in charge of trying to get pro-Confederate stuff into the papers---giving examples of how to economize on words for telegraph transmission and news stories. He elimates all superfluous opinion and extra words.

"Today, forces under Gen. Lee defeated Union army near Five Forks. Union left the field to the north. Losses heavy."

Now, you can quibble with "defeated" (but if the enemy leaves, that's obvious) or "heavy losses," but this would be a typical dispatch. Papers began to publish extensive lists of the names of those killed, without any additional commentary ("died bravely in battle," or some other BS).

By 1865, the large majority of all papers had adopted the inverted style, heavy fact-based reporting, and began to separate "opinion" or editorial pages from so-called "news." While I agree with cIc that this is ultimately an impossible feat, one can come reasonably close by reporting the most obvious, important facts first (recognizing that everyone will not think the same facts are important).

I also agree that a better way to go is a "biased" partisan press so that people can make up their own minds. However, I do think journalism went through a period of about 100 years (1860-1960) where the majority of reporters and editors tried to be "objective" and adopted codes of conduct to try to ensure objectivity (always get more than one witness; get the other side of the story; no unsourced stories; etc.) In other words, I do think for a while most reporters attempted to be "fair and balanced" and "objective." Whether they succeeded is a different question.

One of the problems is that if you ALWAYS get the "other side of the story," it does introduce the notion that there always IS another "side of the story." What was the other side of the story to the Holocaust? Should we "get Hitler's take?" In other words, it legitimizes falsity.

Finally, if you are really interested in this, try to run down an article (you'd probably need interlibrary loan or a college library) from 1973 or 1974 by Robert C. Loewenberg, "'Value-Free' vs. 'Value-Laden' History: A Distinction Without a Difference," The Historian. I can find the exact date if you want it. He shows that attempting to separate "facts" from "values," whether in history or journalism, is impossible, and that "objectivity" was one response---but the other was outright bias against the "status quo," whether it was society, tradition, or whatever. In part, then, that explains the inbred liberalism of reporters.

I have in my book [A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror - No need to be shy, Larry.] an example of the Confederate "information" officer---the guy in charge of trying to get pro-Confederate stuff into the papers---giving examples of how to economize on words for telegraph transmission and news stories. He elimates all superfluous opinion and extra words.

. . . Still, even with the telegraph (which really didn't connect a great deal until the late 1850s), that didn't change newspaper reporting.

I think I referenced Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails and News Over the Wires in the article which started this thread. The former, more recent, book led me to want more on the topic and caused me to Google up the latter book. In consequence, I am at some risk of conflating the contents of the two somewhat. But the clear message was that the Associated Press, initially the New York Associated Press, was founded in 1848 and was an aggressive monopoly seeking to prevent public news from being transmitted in competition with itself. That was too obviously an unprecedented concentration of propaganda power to escape notice, and the AP was challenged on that basis. And the AP's response to that challenge to its very legitimacy was to point out that the newspapers in that association were of various political stripes - and to claim on that basis that there was no danger in the AP because the AP was objective.
Of course, since in the founding era there was no barrier to entry into the newspaper business other than a little capital, the perspective of any given newspaper no matter how tendentious had natural limits to its effect. But the AP was a different matter entirely. And of course the tradition of claiming objectivity is best known in the broadcasting business, where claiming objectivity is vital to the legitimacy of licensed journalism.

What changed reporting was the Civil War. It had nothing to do with the "chain of control," or anything like that---it had everything to do with the public's demand for facts as opposed to opinions and rhetoric.

According to the sources I cited, the Lincoln Administration did in fact coopt the AP by giving it favorable access to the telegraph offices and to Administration officials, and by preventing others from effectively competing with the AP - in exchange for favorable coverage and suppression of unfavorable or sensitive reports.

if you are really interested in this, try to run down an article (you'd probably need interlibrary loan or a college library) from 1973 or 1974 by Robert C. Loewenberg, "'Value-Free' vs. 'Value-Laden' History: A Distinction Without a Difference," The Historian. I can find the exact date if you want it. He shows that attempting to separate "facts" from "values," whether in history or journalism, is impossible, and that "objectivity" was one response---but the other was outright bias against the "status quo," whether it was society, tradition, or whatever. In part, then, that explains the inbred liberalism of reporters.

Very interesting, professor. I do want to see that! I'll be talking to my favorite librarian (my son) about it next time I drop by and see him.

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