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.
BTTT