Posted on 11/23/2007 6:07:22 PM PST by Kaslin
Thomas Jefferson once said, "The only security of all is in a free press." As a former newspaper reporter, I believe in a news media free from censorship. At their best, the news media help promote our democracy.
Like many Americans, though, I am increasingly concerned about a bias in the mainstream news media. To me, there is a significant liberal slant in news reporting that prevents the American people from getting facts about critical issues facing our country. Without facts, Americans cannot make informed decisions about issues, and our democracy is threatened.
Evidence of unfair reporting is abundant. In 2004, a UCLA study found that 18 of 20 major news outlets scored to the left of the average American voter, while just two scored to the right of the average voter. Since the combined viewership and circulation of these liberal-leaning news outlets far exceeds that of conservative-leaning media, Americans get the vast majority of their news from left-of-center sources.
The results of the UCLA study are troubling but not surprising, especially since there is also evidence that journalists tend to sympathize with liberal points of view in their personal lives.
A recent MSNBC investigation examined campaign contributions made by journalists from 2004 through the start of the 2008 election cycle. Out of 144 journalists from around the country, 125 gave to Democrats and liberal groups, just 17 gave to Republicans and conservative groups, and two gave to both parties.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
Again, do you mind if I laugh, or would that get me fired, or perhaps even fired upon?
Wow.. I am very impressed. Too bad it was so long ago. I guess somethings never change.
That takes time. People would not stand for this but if you slowly start setting the stage with what is PC, what is racist, what is a hate thought etc, it can happen. Middle School World History.
A search turned up a number of links.
Here's the Accuracy in Media story on it.
Apparently, London's Daily Mirror fell for a similar thing.
“...We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes....”
Interesting. Now since rich print media don’t ‘hang out’ with rich shipping magnates,or auto builders, they hang out with other media types-such as Hollywood moguls, and radio and television tycoons...Call that a vast left wing conspiracy but all those media outlets are instruments of thought manipulation...leftist thought manipulation, and anti-establishment, anti-God, anti-Church, anti-Republican,
anti-Christmas, and PRO-anything that challenges the mainstream thinking of the average American..Hence the push for Political Correctness, which is to say- the push to eliminate the mainstream values of Americans, to crush it everywhere- in the press, the classroom, the mass communication outlets...Gotcha !
different time, different advertisers....yep...you have it.
well i scream for ice cream, thank you...I hear what you are saying about a free press and technically you are correct in the sense that it is not a government controlled press. That is what the Constitution accomplished in setting up the doctrine of a free press. However, I am stating that there is not a free press in America because as an entire industry it is a horizontal monopoly. There are many separate newspapers but the vast majority of them act together to push left leaning viewpoints. In that sense, there is not a ‘free’ press, but a press in chains- bound to their rich owners demands, and beholden to other media on the left side. It makes one wonder if the FCC should disallow Press owners from owning radio and television stations again..break up the horizontal
monopoly, and maybe the competition will yield a more balanced view...Of course that is anathema to the Dems who like a strong government and want to see power concentrated in a friendly Mass Media....
Thank you Kaslin for the posting of this thread, it started a thread of truth for Bigun's post.
Most enlightening and informative thread and posted by each of the two of you, capped by billmor at post #27.
Hope y'all do not mind this post. I am only attempting to give credit where credit is due. FReepers always hold the answers, only sometimes it takes more posts, on a thread, than this one took. I salute each one of you!
A little early....but Merry Christmas, to all!
“What we have is the making of a Revolution or becoming a Communist country.”
I believe that’s what 2008 is basically about. But .. Hillary is a Marxist/Socialist - and her presidency would be the end of freedom in America as we know it today.
The Clintons are very vengeful people .. we must never forget that Bill Clinton openly stated he thought it was okay to kill people who hurt you.
WE MUST NOT ALLOW THOSE PEOPLE BACK IN THE WH - we’ve already suffered enough as a nation because of the Clinton’s horrible policies.
I keep hearing Hillary say - “when I’m president again” - WHAT ..?? This woman is so arrogant and evil .. I’m praying for a revolution.
“You do not have the right”
What do you mean by “right?” Are you limiting yourself to legal rights?
“You really have no right whatsoever to demand that others be a certain way. They have a right to be idiotic and wrong.”
They have a legal right, but not a moral right, and you have a moral right to demand that they act right, and a legal right to verbalize those demands.
“It just means nobody is going to throttle you.”
If you start a paper and boldly publish the truth today, you will have the sans culottes howling for your blood before you can say “EIB.” And they won’t stop with howling. They will do you violence.
“Odd, though, that you want to throttle others in the name of “freedom.”
No, not in the name of freedom; in the name of all that is good and decent.
You say that a press is free so long as the government is not repressing it. But what about other elements? If the drug gangsters in Columbia are throttling the press, is it free? If one political faction in this country is significantly restricting the information that appears in te media, are they free?
I guarantee you that if I had the power, the left would be squalling about the lack of a free press — and they would be right, because I would give them no access whatsoever.
“reject their leftist viewpoints and we want a more objective media, a free press that wil report viewpoints from both sides of the political spectrum”
A truly objective press would report leftist viewpoints only along these lines: “Citizens, beware. The latest idiocy cooked up by the demon-ridden filth on the left is X. A brief consideration of Y shows us that this is not only wrong, but evil.”
I don’t think that objectivity requires one to pretend that leftist ideas are anything but Satanic evil. If they must be addressed, viewpoints from the left should be scorned, mocked, vilified, and spat upon. More often, though, they should be ignored.
If there were some way to identify leftists on sight, I’d say put a bounty on them.
I agree with your view of leftists — totally.
However, if we are not to become as winged out as they are, we have to keep our story straight, as it were. In other words, we cannot call for government to mandate “fairness” if we want a free press.
Open your own newspaper or join the leftists in their socialist utopia.
Quit yer slobbering whining and beat them in the capitalist game! Either that, or face the fact that you’re no different than they are.
The Taliban want to throttle you in the name of all that is good and decent, as does Nancy Pelosi. Do you really aspire to being like them?
Of course there are influences on the quality of the information we receive. But the concept of “freedom” is not applicable, because it relates to the government’s actions. That’s the concept.
Are the capitalist forces aligned toward the left? Yes, but as long as the government doesn’t act like a despot, enforcing its own idea of goodness, then it’s a marketplace of ideas. And if you don’t have the money to compete, you better try to find it so that you can be another voice out there.
The truth seems to me to be that we are blessed with a lot of voices that echo our own ideas of what is good. Let’s be thankful for those — I could name them, but you know who they are. Be grateful that IBD exists, that National Review, American Spectator, and the myriad blogs exist. Don’t join the opposition! Be thankful. Think about creating another alternative, if you want, but don’t ask for government enforcement of “goodness” and decency in the realm of the press. You violate the fundamental precept of our entire society if you do that.
Am I as sick as you of the distortions and the godlessness of the MSM? You bet I am. But forcing people to be good has never worked, as you know. Our appeal to people’s decency has to come from within the system that itself provides for us the freedom to scream from the rooftops what we believe to be true. The other guy has the same right, but if you don’t believe he does, you’re more like him than like me.
“The Taliban want to throttle you in the name of all that is good and decent, as does Nancy Pelosi.”
That is absolutely the most idiotic inanity I’ve ever seen on FR. I don’t think I can be more insulting of it than just to say that it’s the worst possible sort of puerile moral relativism.
“But the concept of “freedom” is not applicable, because it relates to the government’s actions. That’s the concept.”
That may be your concept. Others note that agencies other than government can also interfere with freedom.
“as long as the government doesn’t act like a despot, enforcing its own idea of goodness, then it’s a marketplace of ideas.”
1. Not when there are other agents enforcing their own ideas, preventing the marketplace from functioning.
2. It has been said that people are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Neither are people entitled to their own “idea of goodness.”
“don’t ask for government enforcement of “goodness” and decency in the realm of the press.”
There is no need to put goodness in quotation marks. You know what it is. That said, I didn’t ask for government enforcement of anything.
“You violate the fundamental precept of our entire society if you do that.”
Road apples. It is no precept of our society that evil be held as on the same moral plane as good. Our government could criminalize the communication of leftist ideas without violating any principle of our founding.
“But forcing people to be good has never worked, as you know.”
Nobody said anything about forcing anyone to be good.
“Our appeal to people’s decency has to come from within the system that itself provides for us the freedom to scream from the rooftops what we believe to be true.”
It no longer does. That is partially due to government, and partially to other agents.
“The other guy has the same right, but if you don’t believe he does, you’re more like him than like me.”
Like him, and unlike you, I understand how the tactics of the left work to suppress the expression of opposing ideas; I understand how they progress from “You can’t stop me from saying this,” to “You can’t say that.” I understand how they use your misunderstanding of concepts to bind the hands of those who stand against them. I understand that all leftism is of and from Satan, and that if it is not utterly obliterated — as thoroughly as Carthage and by whatever means — it will destroy us.
You would have us stand by and let them destroy us, in the name of their “rights.” However, there can never be a moral right to wreak evil, and there is always a right to use moral means to stop people from wreaking evil. Where there exists a legal right to work evil, it is well to remember that moral rights precede and are the source of legal rights.
More importantly, he was an HONEST guy!
Absolutely correct!
Our problem (conservatives) is that we have allowed the left to gain control of almost all of the MSM through our unwillingness to spend our money and invest our efforts in such ventures. We could change it very quickly if we REALLY wanted to. Unfortunately we do not and thus it presently falls to a very few trailblazers on the internet to do it for us.
Absolutely! And that would not change if conservatives controlled the MSM either.
You are most welcome and a VERY Merry Christmas to you as well!
Enemedia ping.
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