Posted on 08/05/2012 7:00:40 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
A recent Gallup survey reports Americans are increasingly frustrated with the quality of television news. Only 21 percent of Americans now express “a great deal” of confidence in television news. That is the lowest score ever, dropping from the 46 percent level when Gallup started asking this question in 1993. Declines in confidence are found across all age groups and political affiliations. Given the recent performance of TV news, further deterioration in confidence is inevitable.
ABC’s Brian Ross jumped to conclusions and suggested a link between the Aurora movie shooter and the tea party. NBC’s unprofessional editing of the George Zimmerman 911 audio led to a false impression. Then NBC made misleading edits of a Mitt Romney campaign speech that seemed to make the GOP nominee appear shocked by the technology at convenience stores.
These are not accidents. They are egregious errors in judgment that could be avoided if the professional culture were more committed to accuracy and fairness, and less preoccupied with being first, showing off and sensationalizing the news.
Television is still the source from which most citizens get their news. A free press was established to provide the information needs of a democracy. Television news, as the citizenry’s prime surrogate, assumes a heavy responsibility. The nation needs and deserves a television news industry that enlightens and empowers citizens.
(Excerpt) Read more at collegenews.org ...
Regarding that 48%, when I was in elementary school I remember discussions about how difficult it was to imagine Americans killing Americans, even sometimes relatives, in the Civil War. It was a discussion from the perspective of ‘that couldn't happen now’.
However, seeing how divided our country is, and thinking about how hateful the rhetoric often is, I have little trouble imaging a significant proportion of the left being ‘all in’ with the idea of either coercing or eradicating those on the ‘hated’ right. It's clearly gotten that ugly.
I also have no question that a large number would love to see a ‘cultural revolution’ like that of China - just going in a taking stuff from those who have been successful and that they thus resent. To some extent, OWS and the ‘go after the 1%’ movements are early prototypes of a leftist cultural revolution that they wish would happen.
The point is, he didn't even recognize a newspaper story about his own plane crash. If a "news" report of something as non political as a plane crash is so inaccurate that the pilot of the crash doesn't even recognize it as his own incident, just think of the distortion that is present in a political story, where the writer can't help but have a personal bias.
I can’t believe anyone trusted TV news in 1993. They were lying like hyenas for Bill Clinton back then.
What I find most appalling is that so many Libs/Progressives (and I personally know three women still supporting Obama) say they watch that sick wanna-be comedienne, Jon Stewart and believe that he is an honest journalist delivering the “news.” They make their decisions based on his twisted thoughts. Same for that other hypocrite, Bill Mahar, who Libs seem to tolerate for some strange reason, and even believe. Why people want to watch what they think is “news” that has been spun by joke writers and is being spoon fed to them by people who really just want to ridicule and not report the truth, is beyond me. It says something is very lacking when a person would rather just laugh about issues, or agree with someone who makes fun of others, rather than take a serious look into what the issues really are.
But you’ll have to admit that TV keeps us up to date about the things that really matter, like when Lindsey Lohan forgets her underwear.
I think I stopped watching TV News in high school when the Cronkite was on every night bringing the daily bad news from Viet Nam into our homes. I subscribed to the WSJ in an Engineering Economics class and have kept it current almost ever since. Then, with the advent of the WWW and more reliable and honest news, who would ever need to plop themselves down in front of the boob tube to watch radical libs spout their biases as “news”?
“Trust” in TV news died with Huntley and Brinkley.
As a highschool student Crankbait made me sick. So did the Super Liar Dan the Blabber. My Mom was a leftist hippie but hated them both as well simply because she didn’t like liars.
They’ve doomed themselves.
Fox is eventually going to reach a critical mass, and the media bias will be eliminated.
Meanwhile the “media” is becoming a biased pool of mostly nonsense.
How, exactly, do you do that?...get the facts for themselves.
By reading the FReeper commentaries on the articles posted here - then thinking.The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing . . .It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity,
and they very seldom teach it enough. - Adam Smith
These are not accidents. They are egregious errors in judgment that could be avoided if the professional culture were more committed to accuracy and fairness, and less preoccupied with being first, showing off and sensationalizing the news.Television is still the source from which most citizens get their news. A free press was established to provide the information needs of a democracy. Television news, as the citizenry’s prime surrogate, assumes a heavy responsibility. The nation needs and deserves a television news industry that enlightens and empowers citizens.
Broadcast journalism has its licenses which limit direct competition in broadcast journalism; because of that broadcasting has a theoretical responsibility to be objective. But there is a difference between trying to be objective, and trying to look like you are being objective.In a larger sense, the problem isn’t the medium used, whether print or broadcast - the problem is the nature of journalism as we know it. The nature, that is, of the wire service.
In the founding era, newspapers were mostly weeklies, and some newspapers had no deadline at all, and just went to press when the printer was good and ready. They had no communication technology which was not accessible to the public at large, and by the time the newspaper came out on Wednesday (say) you might very well already know any news which reached the printer shortly after press time the previous Tuesday night. From the same sources the printer had. Consequently, newspapers were as much about the printer’s take on the news as they were about the news itself. IOW, newspaper printers were more like today’s talk radio hosts than like today’s “objective” journalists.
But with the wire services (and a single one, the AP, has always dominated by its own monopolistic design), journalism became homogenized. All major outlets have the same information feed, and the reporters working for the individual members of the AP aspire to have their stories picked up by other outlets nationwide. They conform their formats and their slant on their stories to the Associated Press template. And since the individual editors don’t even know, much less supervise, reporters who contribute stories to their papers via the newswire, the whole operation of wire service journalism hinges on the shared assumptions of its membership.
It is a cult.
Like all cults, it conflates its own interest with the public good. The cult of “objective” wire service journalism places the promotion of the interests intrinsic to journalism - the desire for attention, prosperity, and influence - above the interests of individual people and against the cumulative interests of people generally.
The cult of wire service journalism requires that the public assume that its priests are objective, so its membership promotes that absurd proposition incessantly. To claim objectivity - even to belong to a group which claims objectivity for you - is to foreclose the very possibility of seriously attempting to be objective. Because belief in your own objectivity is the defining characteristic of its opposite, subjectivity. No one can do the real work of attempting objectivity - no one can openly lay out the reasons why he or she might not be objective - and simultaneously claim that they actually are objective.
The cult of “objective” journalism places bad news - places criticism, condemnation, and complaint - on a plane far above getting your hands dirty by actually trying to do something. "The man who is actually in the arena” gets no respect from the cult of criticism, condemnation, and complaint.
The cult of “objective” journalism places novelty far above accuracy. Consequently “There’s nothing more worthless than yesterday’s Newspaper.” The cult of superficial attention-grabbing defines a big story as always “Man Bites Dog,” not “Dog Bites Man.”
The cult of “objective” journalism flatters anyone who promotes journalism’s ego, and heaps derision on anyone who openly considers other principles and constituencies to be more important than the cult of journalism. “Objective” journalism flatters its acolytes by calling them “liberal” or “progressive” - and derides its skeptics with terms like “conservative” and “right wing extremists.” And, during the Soviet era, “Cold Warriors.”
There is no objectivity in “objective” journalism. “Objective journalism” is a propaganda cult. One which successfully cons a very great number of Americans. Most of us have fallen for the con, at least some of the time . . .
The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing . . .
It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity,
and they very seldom teach it enough. - Adam Smith
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