All Ranks and orders of our People, are intelligent, are accomplished-- a Native of America, especially of New England, who cannot read and wright is as rare a Phenomenon as a Comet.April Shenandoah offers some statistics on early American literacy.
At the time of the Revolution, the literacy level was virtually 100% (even on the frontier it was greater than 70%).Fairness doctrinaires ought to carefully note results gleaned from a recent poll.
According to a new poll by Zogby and the Independent Film Channel the internet is now more trusted than TV and print news combined. Wired News and LGF reported:
The web is the most trusted news medium (over TV and print combined), and Fox News is the most trusted TV news source, according to results from a new Zogby poll commissioned by the Independent Film Channel (pdf).
Fox ruled with 39.3 percent of those polled beating out CNN at 16 percent and MSNBC at 15 percent.
These results are good fodder for Fox in defending its claims of being "Fair and Balanced" -- it's also interesting to note that more people in the poll described themselves as Democrats than Republicans -- but the majority of Americans seem to also have little faith in the media at all.
The online survey of 3,472 adults two days after the election found that three out of four people think that the media influenced the outcome, and about the same number also think that the media in general is biased.
In the other categories, The New York Times was the most trusted newspaper and Rush Limbaugh (12.5 percent) came out on top among news personalities closely followed by Fox’s Bill O’Reilly (10.1 percent).
I remember a quote from a book by a European traveler in which he was astonished that when he came onto a rude camp in the woods, the deer skin clad people sitting around campfire would eventually begin heatedly discussing the latest best seller.
Fairness doctrinaires ought to carefully note results gleaned from a recent poll.
Perfectly true, I make no doubt - but, IMHO, beside the point so far as how SCOTUS should rule. As I noted in #23, SCOTUS treatment of claims of objectivity should be dismissive:Anyone can, like the Sophists of old, claim superior wisdom - or objectivity, or any other virtue. But whoever does so - no matter what the weight of their purses, what printing presses, telegraph lines, or other communications equipment they may own or control, or even how many others similarly situated who may be in concert with them in making such claim - cannot thereby attain any authority over the opinions of their fellows. They not only do not attain the authority of the verdict of a jury, they do not (precisely because of their freedom) even attain the credibility of witnesses under oath and subject to the laws of perjury. They are still only people, and they do not on that account constitute any part of the government.Decline to accept claims of objectivity, IOW, and you are on sound constitutional ground without placing any reliance on data subject to challenge. If however SCOTUS, or some subset of it, wishes to interest itself - unnecessarily, as I argue - with the merits of the claims of Big Journalism, there is an embarrassment of sources and anecdotes to choose from. As if that could ever satisfy Big Journalism's sycophants; we well know from experience that it could never do so. I would merely note the existence of that body of information and then go to what I consider to be the jugular. And that is the fact that journalism itself is easily shown not to function so much as multiple independent operations as fronts for a monopolistic organization - the Associated Press - which was found by SCOTUS in 1945 to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.Associated Press journalism has easily identifiable interests which are openly expressed in such bywords of journalism as, "If it bleeds, it leads," "Man Bites Dog, not Dog Bites Man," "There's nothing more worthless than yesterday's newspaper," and the ever-looming deadline. Journalism affects to be "The Press," and affects to operate in the public interest - but in fact it clearly operates in its own interest. "Objectivity" is a hollow boast. But the crucial point to me is that SCOTUS need not find that journalism is or is not objective; such claims properly are entirely irrelevant to the issue. The nut of the issue is the fact that the government doesn't have the authority to declare Big Journalism, or anyone else, to be objective. Even if that premise were true. Which I consider fortunate, since IMHO the claimed absence of bias in journalism is at best an unprovable negative, the claims of which should be dismissed out of hand.
Along with "Campaign Finance Reform," any thought of a revival of the "Fairness Doctrine," and abridgment of the right of the people to FReep.
Article I, Section 9 (h) states thatNo title of nobility shall be granted by the United States . . .There is of course such a thing as "free association" as a right of the people; you can associate with who you want to and do not have to listen to or mingle with those you do not choose to. And some associations are famous for the grandiose titles they assign to their leaders. "Grand" is the sort of adjective to be expected among such titles. And such organizations certainly may have idiosyncratic names for ordinary members as well. A mundane example would the use of the term "associates" for the employees of Walmart.The Associated Press is an exercise of the right of free association by certain of the people. And "the press" is a title which the people in that association call all its members. But not the only one. Another title which members confer on each other is, "objective journalist." And, IMHO, those titles which members of the Associated Press assign to each other and themselves deserve precisely the same status before the law as a title like "Grand Dragon" would merit in any other association. The courts would not assume that a "Grand Dragon" actually is either "grand" or a dragon. No more so should they assume that people who calls themselves "the press" are actually pieces of machinery for printing text and images on paper.
Nor should the courts assume that people who call themselves "objective" have any inherent superiority over those who do not. In point of fact, assigning a virtue to yourself is often associated with the vice of arrogance.