NATHAN:First media bias...now government censorship?

The Washington Times ^ | Friday, November 28, 2008 | Alan Nathan

[masonking21]

"What chance do arguments have to rise and fall on their merits if they're framed by a seemingly party-owned press? And once that party comes to power, won't its lackey journalists constitute a type of state-owned press? In other words (after Inauguration Day), how can the blushing news media keep from sharing President-elect Barack Obama's political bed - given they have already serviced his electoral needs?"

[masonking21]

The mass media is even more dangerous than I feared.

[combat_boots]

“serviced his electoral needs?”

A bit premature, eh, naming/calling him president-elect when the electors have yet to meet........

;>

[sionnsar]

Welcome to Free Republic.

[keats5]

Thanks for posting.

[GOP Poet]

yes it is and why we must work even harder to get the truth out.

[FormerACLUmember]

Thanks for the interesting post. Welcome.

[Republic of Texas]

Yeah. It’s called a pattern. It’s happened before. Germany. Russia. It’s predictable. For those that can read.

[Recovering_Democrat]

The LameStream Media, even local stations, are in the tank for Hussein ALL the way.

The latest I saw: calling Robert Gates’ retention of the DoD post a “fulfillment of a Campaign promise by Obama, to have a bipartisan cabinet...”

LOL. When you look, sometimes, at the age, race, and lifestyle choices of many in the broadcast media, you don’t even have to ask (sometimes) the party affiliation or the educational qualifications.

TV “news” is thick with thick headed liberals. Of course there are exceptions. But not many.

[sig226]

Maybe. The rapid decline of the print news media presents an opportunity I’ve considered for the past few years. Most of the content of a newspaper is garbage. Press releases renamed as original stories, pack journalism, bias, and superficial coverage increased profits for a while, but they’ve turned millions of customers away from print, television, and radio.

I wonder what would happen if news outlets began to cover the news responsibly and devote their energy to substance instead of appearance. It would have to be a weekly, akin to what Time Magazine and the others were once supposed to be, but without the comic book hero worship of the far left. The project is conceivable, there’s no lack of publishers who will print anything that sells. The problem is keeping it truly nuetral.

But that, I envision when I’m truly enjoying myself on a sunny day, would allow me to sit as hiring director and tell 90% of the reporters who come begging for a job that they are idealogues disguised as talking heads, totally unqulified for the job, security will escort them out. :)

[Onelifetogive]

I wonder what would happen if news outlets began to cover the news responsibly and devote their energy to substance instead of appearance. It would have to be a weekly, akin to what Time Magazine and the others were once supposed to be, but without the comic book hero worship of the far left. The project is conceivable, there’s no lack of publishers who will print anything that sells. The problem is keeping it truly nuetral.

I disagree with tour premise. I see the print media as a business model where they choose a selection of web pages, organize them, print them out and pay someone to bring them to my house long after the information is stale. Biased or not, this does not interest me. I want news tailored exactly to me, where I can comment on it, in real time.

[sig226]

I was thinking that I should have been more clear in my example when I wrote that post. Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, and the various other news magazines were never intended to compete with dailies for headlines. Instead, they claimed to offer insight and depth to current events, something the dailies can't provide due to space and deadline requirements.

Of course, what we got was the usual marxist crap pretending at journalism. Look around you. Millions of dollars are being spent in the smallest towns in this country. Whether the movement of money and politics leans right or left is irrelevant to the fact any policy will produce winners and losers, long term and short term consequences.

Rush Limbaugh succeeded not because of any special gift for analysis, but because he offered an alternative to the left wing outlook on the news. A sense of humor was a big help. But when the networks, newspapers, and magazines offered only the socialist viewpoint that any government program was good, Limbaugh suggested that this is not the case. Millions of people were listening when he said there are choices besides more welfare and more taxes and the democrats might just be as scandal prone as they paint the republicans.

It is amazing to me that no publisher has caught on to this. I suppose it's because they, like Dan Rather, consider that rabidly supporting all politics of the far left is middle of the road. It's a powerful delusion.