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Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate
Conservatism IS Compassion ^ | Sept 14, 2001 | Conservatism_IS_Compassion

Posted on 09/14/2001 7:02:19 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion

The framers of our Constitution gave carte blance protection to “speech” and “the press”. They did not grant that anyone was then in possession of complete and unalloyed truth, and it was impossible that they should be able to a priori institutionalize the truth of a future such human paragon even if she/he/it were to arrive.

At the time of the framing, the 1830s advent of mass marketing was in the distant future. Since that era, journalism has positioned itself as the embodiment of nonpartisan truth-telling, and used its enormous propaganda power to make the burden of proof of any “bias” essentially infinite. If somehow you nail them dead to rights in consistent tendentiousness, they will merely shrug and change the subject. And the press is protected by the First Amendment. That is where conservatives have always been stuck.

And make no mistake, conservatives are right to think that journalism is their opponent. Examples abound so that any conservative must scratch his/her head and ask “Why?” Why do those whose job it is to tell the truth tell it so tendentiously, and even lie? The answer is bound and gagged, and lying on your doorstep in plain sight. The money in the business of journalism is in entertainment, not truth. It is that imperative to entertain which produces the perspective of journalism.

And that journalism does indeed have a perspective is demonstrated every day in what it considers a good news story, and what is no news story at all. Part of that perspective is that news must be new--fresh today--as if the events of every new day were of equal importance with the events of all other days. So journalism is superficial. Journalism is negative as well, because the bad news is best suited to keep the audience from daring to ignore the news. Those two characteristics predominate in the perspective of journalism.

But how is that related to political bias? Since superficiality and negativity are anthema to conservatives there is inherent conflict between journalism and conservatism.. By contrast, and whatever pious intentions the journalist might have, political liberalism simply aligns itself with whatever journalism deems a “good story.” Journalists would have to work to create differences between journalism and liberalism, and simply lack any motive to do so. Indeed, the echo chamber of political “liberalism” aids the journalist--and since liberalism consistently exacerbates the issues it addresses, successful liberal politicians make plenty of bad news to report.

The First Amendment which protects the expression of opinion must also be understood to protect claims by people of infallibility--and to forbid claims of infallibility to be made by the government. What, after all, is the point of elections if the government is infallible? Clearly the free criticism of the government is at the heart of freedom of speech and press. Freedom, that is, of communication.

By formatting the bands and standardizing the bandwiths the government actually created broadcasting as we know it. The FCC regulates broadcasting--licensing a handful of priveledged people to broadcast at different frequency bands in particular locations. That is something not contemplated in the First Amendment, and which should never pass constitutional muster if applied to the literal press. Not only so, but the FCC requires application for renewal on the basis that a licensee broadcaster is “operating in the public interest as a public trustee.” That is a breathtaking departure from the First Amendment.

No one questions the political power of broadcasting; the broadcasters themselves obviously sell that viewpoint when they are taking money for political advertising. What does it mean, therefore, when the government (FCC) creates a political venue which transcends the literal press? And what does it mean when the government excludes you and me--and almost everyone else--from that venue in favor of a few priviledged licensees? And what does it mean when the government maintains the right to pull the license of anyone it does allow to participate in that venue? It means a government far outside its First Amendment limits. When it comes to broadcasting and the FCC, clearly the First Amendment has nothing to do with the case.

The problem of journalism’s control of the venue of argument would be ameliorated if we could get them into court. In front of SCOTUS they would not be permitted to use their mighty megaphones. And to get to court all it takes is the filing of a civil suit. A lawsuit must be filed against broadcast journalism, naming not only the broadcast licensees, but the FCC.

We saw the tendency of broadcast journalism in the past election, when the delay in calling any given State for Bush was out of all proportion to the delay in calling a state for Gore, the margin of victory being similar--and, most notoriously, the state of Florida was wrongly called for Gore in time to suppress legal voting in the Central Time Zone portion of the state, to the detriment of Bush and very nearly turning the election. That was electioneering over the regulated airwaves on election day, quite on a par with the impact that illegal electioneering inside a polling place would have. It was an enormous tort.

And it is on that basis that someone should sue the socks off the FCC and all of broadcast journalism.

Journalism has a simbiotic relation with liberal Democrat politicians, journalists and liberal politicians are interchangable parts. Print journalism is only part of the press (which also includes books and magazines and, it should be argued, the internet), and broadcast journalism is no part of the press at all. Liberals never take issue with the perspective of journalism, so liberal politicians and journalists are interchangable parts. The FCC compromises my ability to compete in the marketplace of ideas by giving preferential access addresses to broadcasters, thus advantaging its licensees over me. And broadcast journalism, with the imprimatur of the government, casts a long shadow over elections. Its role in our political life is illegitimate.

The First Amendment, far from guaranteeing that journalism will be the truth, protects your right to speak and print your fallible opinion. Appeal to the First Amendment is appeal to the right to be, by the government or anyone else’s lights, wrong. A claim of objectivity has nothing to do with the case; we all think our own opinions are right.

When the Constitution was written communication from one end of the country to the othe could take weeks. Our republic is designed to work admirably if most of the electorate is not up to date on every cause celebre. Leave aside traffic and weather, and broadcast journalism essentially never tells you anything that you need to know on a real-time basis.


TOPICS: Editorial; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: broadcastnews; ccrm; constitutionlist; iraqifreedom; journalism; mediabias; networks; pc; politicalcorrectness; televisedwar
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To: fporretto; ForGod'sSake; E.G.C.; PGalt
I think it was Henry Kissenger who said that power is an aphrodesiac. The names of powerful men in history who have been rapacious with women is legion.

But since our aspiration is a government of laws, not men, it is no accident that rapacious men have not been elected President of the United States. Our model is not a Saddam or even a King David, but George Washington. While it is true that General Washington held slaves, there is no record of any accusation of personal abuse of them lodged against him; to the contrary President Washington is lauded for not desiring power, twice retiring in honor from it--in contrast to, for example, Fidel Castro.

The difference in perspective between Democrats and Republicans is such that Ann Coulter can entitle a polemic Treason with an entirely straight face, and essentially that is because liberals trust a Democrat-run government. Surely Republicans trust a Republican-run government? Not in the same way.

Liberals have too much hope in the power of the government to do good, and too little confidence it the individual decisions of the people, to be seriously concerned over a little license on the part of a political leader who presents himself as what is by liberal standards a doer-of-good. That confidence in government maps to a confidence in the establishment which is journalism, which liberals actually trust as the center of government.

Liberals consistenly manifest a cavalier attitude toward (essentially uniformly Democrat) vote fraud. The record of the journalistic manipulations in the Nixon and Clinton impeachments and in covering for vote fraud in the 1960 Kennedy victory and making Florida 2000 as close and judicially contested as it was is perfectly clear to liberals. Liberals heard, without any hint of exception from the journalism establishment, Mr. Daily's comment in the middle of Election Night that the Democrats actually had won Florida. A son of a noted machine politician declaimed something which he had no credentials to know, and which would have created an uproar if said by a Republican operative in remotely similar circumstance--and liberals approved. Liberals know and approve of the fact that journalism will go all out to install Democratic presidents and defeat Republican ones. Ultimately liberals consider the PR power of the journalism establishment, and not individual voter decisions reflected in election results, to be the center of political legitimacy.

And that is the heart of what Ann Coulter calls "treason."

Conservatives, OTOH, respect the danger in the power of government too much, and place too much confidence in the individual decisions of the people, to consider it either wise or necessary to trust that governmental office will always be used wisely and temperately.

Furthermore liberals are as a group distinctly less respectful of religious traditions than are conservatives--are in fact noticeably enthusiastic about criticizing prominent Christians. The net result is that liberals aren't seriously concerned with the character of their politicians--and that conservatives are far more so.

One would therefore logically expect that charismatic and notably libertine leaders could arise among Democrats far more easily than among Republicans, and that is IMHO the case. To give the Democrats a head start, consider presidents since FDR, and ask if their names are associated with any, or multiple, women to whom they were not legally married.

Democrats
Truman - none
Kennedy - multiple
Johnson - multiple
Carter - none
Clinton - multiple
Republicans
Eisenhower - one (prepresidential)
Nixon - none
Ford - none
Reagan - none
Bush 41 - one, prepresidential
Bush 43 - none

So in the last half-century there have been 5 Democratic presidents, three associated with multiple marital infidelities in the White House. There have been 6 Republicans over that span, and none are associated with any marital infidelities in the White House.

Now consider the Governor-elect of California:
a) not nominated in a Republican primary
b) lost a significant margin of conservative votes to conservative with no libertine credentials that I ever heard of.
c) attracted significant Democratic support.
d) nearly all of the charges seem to predate his marriage.
e) all charges predate his political career (short and recent as it is).
Yeah, I guess the two parties are equivalent. </sarcasm>
321 posted on 10/20/2003 7:56:54 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
BTTT!!!!!
322 posted on 10/20/2003 8:19:35 AM PDT by E.G.C.
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
John Edwards . . . argues that most voters do not place candidates on a neat left-right continuum. But they are really good at sensing who shares their values. They are really good at knowing who respects them and who doesn't. Edwards's theory is that the Democrats' besetting sin over the past few decades has been snobbery.
The concensus of journalism--what defines journalism's outlook--is driven by commercial (but remarkably little by any particular advertiser) considerations. That commercial interest of journalism as a whole produces a cult of celebrity in which all who attain notoriety are welcome to participate.

Those who do not participate--go along to get along--pay a heavy price. The price of admission is to never see anything which is outside of journalism's superficial, negative outlook. That is, you cannot have a celebrity good guy image projected by journalism without being a liberal. And since the individual journalist is simply a celebrity, that restriction emphatically applies to the individual journalist. Whoso would break out of that concensus does not become a more conservative journalist, nor even a former journalist--they become an unperson who never was a journalist.

The liberal politician, that is, is a celebrity good guy by vitue of being useful to journalism in precisely the same way that any individual journalist is useful to journalism--by edifying the impression of the public that journalism is the gospel objective truth.

Even granting the truth of journalistic reports, journalism can be no more than a portion of the truth. The entertainment value of a report lies not in its historical significance but, far more typically, in its atypicality ("Man Bites Dog") or putative cause for concern ("Is Your Drinking Water Safe?"). Journalism is anticonservative precisely because its filter passes to the public only entertaining reports. The everyday blessings of God are great--and conservative--truths. But they don't make "good copy" and are simply not information of interest to journalists.

All of which is the long way of saying that although liberals are not paragons of wisdom they have the system for appearing wise down pat. Liberals are "elitists" only in the sense that they project that appearance; in fact they are sophists ("wise" in their own conceit) rather than philosophers ("lovers of wisdom"). They are indeed therefore better characterized not as "noble" but as "lacking nobilty."

In the context of a school largely for the education of the sons of noblemen, those lacking title of nobility were designated as such. As the French word for "without" is "sans", the customary abbreviation for such youth--notorious for putting on airs to compensate for being considered out of place--was "s. nob".
It is the nature of a liberal to be a snob.
The record of the journalistic manipulations in the Nixon and Clinton impeachments--and in covering for vote fraud in the 1960 Kennedy victory and making Florida 2000 as close and judicially contested as it was--is perfectly clear to liberals. Think of it! Liberals heard, without any hint of exception from the journalism establishment, the son of a noted machine politician declaiming in the middle of Election Night that the Democrats actually had won Florida. Mr. Daily's declaration as fact of something which, as a matter of law, he had neither ability nor legal right to know would have created an uproar if said by a Republican operative in remotely similar circumstance--and liberals approved.

Liberals consistenly manifest a cavalier attitude toward (essentially uniformly Democrat) vote fraud. Liberals know and approve of the fact that journalism will go all out to install Democratic presidents and defeat Republican ones. Ultimately liberals consider the PR power of the journalism establishment, and not individual voter decisions reflected in election results, to be the center of political legitimacy.

Although liberal contempt for ballot integrity is directed at Republicans in the first instance, contempt for ballot integrity is contempt for the vote itself--as much exploitation of the Democratic voter as cheating of the Republican. It is contempt for the voter.

Rescuing the Democrats
New York Times | 10/21/03 | DAVID BROOKS

323 posted on 10/21/2003 8:20:47 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
Journalism is a genre of nonfiction entertainment.

Journalism's business essence is to prevent people from walking past the newstand without buying the paper.

To prevent that journalism assaults the passerby with challenges on the order of, "Is Your Drinking Water Safe?" And although the everyday blessings of God are great, they almost never make "good copy." The business imperative of journalism, IOW, is to project a know-it-all, anticonservative image. And journalists do that, not just once but day after day. A conservative who could do that well would be a freak of nature, which explains the paucity of conservative reporters.

Notwithstanding the obvious facts above, appologists of journalism (Marvin Kalb, poster child) style journalism "the first draft of history." That begs the question of what kind of history can be made in a second draft of CNN's Baghdad Bureau coverage,

which admittedly was systematically silent
about historically significant information in its possession
.
Or what edits historians can make of what Novak did not say about the identity of the source of that notorious CIA leak.

Nonetheless it is the testimony (Treason) of Ann Coulter that history is in fact sometimes written as merely the second draft of journalism. Coulter was referring to the journalistic witch hunt against Senator Joseph McCarthy, but the CBS hit piece on Mr. Reagan is cast from precisely the same mold. It is a lie in service of the larger "truth" that journalism is the gospel truth, and all of it.

What a Surprise (</sarcasm> CBS's miniseries on Ronald Reagan]
Investor's Business Daily | October 23, 2003 | Editorial

324 posted on 10/23/2003 6:48:40 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
flagging myself (self flagelation?)
325 posted on 10/23/2003 8:51:21 AM PDT by snopercod (I used to be disgusted. Now I'm just amused.)
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To: Dilbert56
I read it and it was a straightforward proof of media bias.
I got bored with "straightforward" examples of "media bias." That is a twice-told tale. The only serious issue is, "Why?"

I've concluded, after serious study, to answer that question with a question. Considering the immunities and protections of "the press" the question really isn't "Why is the media biased," the question is "Why would anyone expect the media to be fair?"

And "Why would we expect the media, and its pilot fish journalism, to be an intellectually competitive arena rather than a center of left-wing anti-science, anti-religion, intellectual wasteland?"

The answer to that question is, "Because we're suckers, and no other reason."

50

Iraqis are More Pro American Than Democrats
County Press (Second Thoughts) | 10/21/03 | William W. Lawrence


326 posted on 10/24/2003 6:53:06 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
"Why would we expect the media, and its pilot fish journalism, to be an intellectually competitive arena rather than a center of left-wing anti-science, anti-religion, intellectual wasteland?"

There are a couple of factors that contribute to the liberal leanings of the journalism wing of the entertainment industry.

* Motivation - some journalism professors and guest speakers ask their students why they want to be journalists. They often say: "to make the world better". This encourages activism rather than objectivity.

* The nature of the news is exception-oriented. Nobody reports on the 100 million cars that got to their destinations safely each morning. Only the accidents get noticed. There's no news in the 270+million people who HAVE homes either. If all I covered was crime, poverty, and misfortune, I bet eventually I'd start trying, through my coverage, to improve the lot of those suffering rather than simply reporting it and trusting people to do the right thing.

* Many of the alphabets see sensationalism as the way to improve ratings at the cost of being accurate and objective. I remember hearing over and over how I was supposed to be at risk from AIDS even though I've been in a real marriage for 25 years and wasn't getting a blood transfusion. Goldberg really hit on how this kind of propaganda was ginned up to avoid stigmatizing gays. It also hurt our ability to stop AIDS by diluting focus on the behaviors that causued its spread.

Carried to its extreme, we end up with CNN and other news organizations paying thousands of dollars to Saddam's henchmen for the privilege of spreading his lies from Baghdad. Meanwhile their anchors in the US refused to wear flag pins on their lapels so they could stay "objective".

67 posted on 10/24/2003 1:04 PM EDT by Dilbert56
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327 posted on 10/24/2003 6:57:14 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: Dilbert56
Your opinions as stated suggest that you might enjoy reading this relevant thread. I agree emphatically with your post.
328 posted on 10/24/2003 7:11:03 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
I fear the world is rigged to produce liberals and conservatives the way it produces men and women... it roughly equal numbers, with the interaction between them intended to produce never-ending wobble around a mean, so as to prevent things from ever settling down.
There was a quote in a H.S. history book back in the day, from whom I have no idea save that he was British, critiqueing the U.S. Constitution. He called it,
"All sheet and no anchor."

That jibes pretty well with your call for
An Act, to create the last law.
IMHO our fundamental problem of "too much sheet" is precisely the fact that "the press" claims objectivity--thereby converting the perspective which inheres in human intelligence and is therefore unobjectionable in a journalist--into a "bias." "Bias," that is, compared to the phoney-baloney plastic bananna "Code of Journalistic Ethics" pseudo-objectivity.

The pseudo-objectivity of journalism is actually the defining of the perspective of journalistism as the official perspective of the nation--it is a claim of being above having a perspective, looking down from Mount Olympus on the frail mortals who are limited by one.

But there is no denying that journalism differs from other forms of nonfiction, and that no logical basis exists for the assumption that the differences which define journalism come from a higher truth than other, less constrained, nonfiction derives from. Why, after all, is a short deadline conducive to truth? Why, after all, is a whole new product which must be marketed anew every day likely to be superior to a book researched over a period of years in any way other than its defining characteristic of novelty? The proposition is absurd, yet "the press" claims to be--is even treated by some academic historians as--"the first draft of history."

It is however impossible to edit what journalism does not say--eg, CNN's Baghdad Bureau ignoring Saddam's atrocities--into a historical truth. Broadcasting exists as a creature of the government, of the FCC, by virtue of the censorship of those who would otherwise compete with the broadcasters. Nothing the FCC does would pass the smell test if applied to print. That's Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

Freeper Interview Series: Nick Danger Patriot Paradox

329 posted on 10/25/2003 7:54:39 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
OpinionJournal.com THINKING THINGS OVER -
On child abuse and breast implants, our editorials are vindicated.

The Power of Modern Fads

BY ROBERT L. BARTLEY
Monday, October 27, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
A couple of disparate events sent ripples of satisfaction through our editorial-page offices last week. A Massachusetts parole board at long last recommended Gerald Amirault for parole, and a Food and Drug Administration panel recommended that silicone breast implants be returned to the market.
At the time these Star Chamber proceedings were conducted it didn't matter that the famous--and famously "conservative"--editorial page of The Wall Street Journal correctly pointed out that these were nothing more than witch hunts. And what public interest was served by them?

Retrospectively we see clearly and officially that there was none. But at the time these stories titillated the public, and thereby interested us. The essence of my brief against broadcast journalism is that it is great at interesting the public, and counterproductive at serving the long-run public interest. And also very determined to obscure the difference between the two.

Just as with the Stacey Koon (Rodney King) riot and the Florida 2000 litigation horror, journalism was de facto in league with trial lawyers working against the public interest in both these cases. Journalism got its interest from the public (thus its advertising dollars), and the plaintiff bar got its class-action dollars. The public got a hangover.

It's frustrating to see all this, yet to understand that the judiciary is, by and large, coopted by journalism. There is only one SCOTUS justice who is willing to let his legacy speak for itself without reference to what journalism says of him in the here and now.


330 posted on 10/29/2003 5:42:08 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
Well, first of all, the Tet offensive was a militarily significant effort, not four truck bombs. After erosion of their position during 1967, the Communists threw all of their South Vietnam guerrilla forces into attacks in more than 100 cities across the length and breadth of the country. Most spectacularly, since it came before the eyes of the Saigon press corps, a 19-man sapper squad penetrated the U.S. Embassy compound. They failed to enter the chancery building, despite early reports, and the last of them was killed or repulsed after a six-hour battle.

General William Westmoreland appeared in the shattered compound to proclaim a great victory. His televised appearance came against a backdrop of destruction throughout the country, and the American elite decided to believe not the general but their own eyes. A widely cited Wall Street Journal editorial proclaimed that "the whole Vietnam effort may be doomed, it may be falling apart beneath our feet." Walter Cronkite turned against the war, editorializing on the need for negotiation. With this home-front reaction, Tet was the turning-point in the war, the anvil of Communist victory and American defeat.

Yet in fact, Westmoreland was right, subsequent analysts have uniformly concluded. The Communist offensive was decisively repulsed. There was no general uprising in favor of the North. The South Vietnamese army did not buckle, though operating at 50% strength because of imprudent holiday leaves. The indigenous Viet Cong were destroyed, leaving the rest of the war to be conducted by troops recruited in the North.

In other words, Tet was a hugely successful media event

The big-picture lesson of Vietnam is that free, competitive journalism is free to--and does--collude openly in plain sight. Its very freedom assures that journalism is essentially impossible to hold to account for such collusion; journalists herded together and gave us a monochomatic picture of Vietnam. It was superficial, both in the sense that it was proven historically inaccurate retrospectively and in the sense that the journalists are far less expert in military affairs than American generals but subjected the expert's accurate assessment to withering ridicule.

This would seem to have been impossible, assuming that the freedom of American journalism produces vigorous intellectual competition in journalism. Unfortunately, it does not. Freedom does produce vigorous intellectual competition, but journalism is a venue which rejects intellectual competiton. That is, anyone who seriously and determinedly critiques the timid consensus of journalists is excluded--retroactively--from the ranks of journalists.

Journalism is the venue of arrogant timidity. Externally, journalism is arrogant--as the example of its rejection of correct expert opinion show not merely on Vietnam but on fads in general. The riot after the Stacy Koon acquital was caused by journalism's rejection of the expert opinion of the jury, as informed by the defense counsel as well as the prosecution. The list goes on.

But internally, each journalist is afraid of the herd, unwilling to oppose it courageously. Each individual journalist is a mere celebrity, someone who is not expert in whatever subject is at hand but nevertheless is in a position to pontificate about it--and whose real expertise is not in the truth but in what it is safe for him/her to say.

Journalism is not "objective" but systematically anticonservative. A historian should, in order to comment accurately on relatively recent events, view journalism from that perspective. Any history which is merely the second draft of jounalism is BUNK.

Iraq: Another Vietnam? THINKING THINGS OVER:
The Wall Street Journal ^ | November 3, 2003 | ROBERT L. BARTLEY

331 posted on 11/03/2003 6:56:26 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
the majority of blacks do not bother to educate themselves to this fact. They take the democrats word like teenagers in awe of the latest music sensation.
We have to cut blacks a little slack. They are, in great majority, falling for what is to us an obvious con. But the root of that con is the conceit that you can, or at least should be able to, buy
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth
for a buck at the newsstand. And that is a con which is also self-evident--except that you don't have to be black, or culturally conditioned to be a Democrat, in order to sucker for it. I was over fifty before I even began to see through the massive "big lie" campaign behind it. A propaganda campaign so successful that it's actually believed by most of the people who--having grown up listening to it--perpetrate it with a clear conscience.

Making that bold a claim makes me sound like a kook test candidate, but I'm entirely willing to listen to reason.

Prove to me that I should trust journalists telling me that blacks should riot over the acquital of a cop in LA, rather than accepting--at most, investigating the fidelity to duty of--a jury.

Prove to me that I should trust journalists telling me that a general was wrong about Tet and all of Vietnam, when the historical evidence goes the other way.

Prove to me that I should trust journalists telling me that in the 1950s all the liberals in the 1950s were cowed into silence--and that I can know that by the number of "amazingly brave" contemporaneous reports to that effect.

Prove to me that I should trust journalists telling me that my apples have been poisoned by people who have committed their futures to the business of selling apples into the indefinite future.

Prove to me that journalism does not consist of a bunch of "has-been drips under pressure" posturing as "experts"--and deploying presses and broadcast licenses from the government, almost continuously engaged in practicing on the credulity of the public in one hoax or another.

Cast as a negative, that proposition is IMHO unprovable. The fact that something is unprovable does not make it false, but it emphatically does not make it true. And in this case the evidence is the other way.

332 posted on 11/05/2003 5:04:29 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
In this [Democratic] theory, the tax increase caused revenues to cascade into the Treasury, which in turn caused interest rates to fall, and the boom was on. All of this is a repudiation of the old Democratic argument, rooted in Lord Keynes, that tax cuts were advisable in difficult times. Nowadays most Democrats believe in tax increases as fiscal stimulus.

Of course, this theory also overlooks a little economic history. Long-term interest rates actually rose through most of 1994, peaking on the day Republicans took Congress promising to cut spending and taxes. The much bigger bang came from the Gingrich revolution. Only with it did rates fall, the budget move toward balance, the stock market soar and the boom begin. (See the chart nearby.)

Dem-onomics--The Democrats are departing even from Clinton's economics.
Wall St Journal ^ | 11-4-03 (Editorial)

Someone explain to me how the public interest is served by a "Great Debate" rule that the candidates rely strictly on their own memory, and their own verbal skills, to convey the facts as indicated in the chart with the article. That rule is strictly to provide "gotcha" moments for journalists to exploit. Why should our future president be demeaned in that way?

Far better would be to require that candidates provide such graphs and the references upon which they are based. But that would make it harder slippery evasions to carry the day--and this article indicates, liberalism is about slippery evasions.

If Bush is in as strong a position as I hope next fall, he would do a signal service by demanding that any debates be designed to produce light rather than heat. See also my #268 . . .

333 posted on 11/05/2003 6:43:18 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
I've been able to listen to NPR in the past because I knew what to expect. Their coverage itself didn't strike me as grossly slanted -- rather, it was what they CHOSE to cover that was slanted. And that's even worse. It allows them to point to journalistic standards in their reporting while laughing off claims of bias.
The reality is that story selection is the message.

If the story is always the 2000-year-old Bible, the message tends to be conservative; if the story is always "what went wrong yesterday," the message tends to be anticonservative. It follows that wherever there is story selection there will be a political perspective, strong or weak.

The genius of the First Amendment is to take the issue of story selection out of the hands of the government--we-the-people select the genre of entertainment/edification we`choose to pay attention to. Of course, the extent to which we-the-people are aware of the perspective embedded in has a significant political effect, and you can be affected by my decision to follow a different story than you do, and to elect someone for whom you yourself would not vote. But only your powers of persuasion legitimately stand between me and that decision.

You are allowed under the First Amendment not only to speak but to print your opinions in your effort to persuade me. But you are not supposed to get the government to pay your printing costs or pay the salary of your preacher--no matter how "objective" you claim to be. Remember, you are at most in possession of a fraction of the truth, and other people's opinions have equal standing before the law with your own.

All unexceptionable, seemingly--but in fact what I have just said is highly controversial. It implies, first, that no newspaper can be officially credited by the government as any sort of arbiter of what is "objective"--the high ground in any argument. --when in constitutional principle you have the right to be a journalist, arguably in fact are a journalist if you post regularly to this (national, even international) web site.

The least of the problems this creates is the fact that "press conferences" and other special accomodations reporters from a finite sampling of the journalists in the country are discriminatory towards we-the-people who do not have the "title of nobility" of journalist. Worse is the "protection of sources" principle which says that you can and should resist the proper application of the law to a criminal investigation if you have that title of nobility, "objective journalist."

Worse yet, nearly all of we-the-people are censored from transmitting in the government-defined, specially formatted communication channels known as "broadcasting." Only those with the "title of nobility" of broadcast licensee have the right to transmit and, in that venue, the rest of us have the right to shut up and listen.

Worst of all, the judges of the country--even the Supreme Court justices, save one only, by historical accident--are under the sway of the flattery and derision of the "objective journalist."

The fundamental corruption lies in official respect for the conceit that someone who is self-critical enough to accept that his/her viewpoint has a name--"conservative," for example--has less rather than more intellectual integrity than the person who "rejects all labels" for himself. And, thereby, presumes to be above criticism.

End NPR subsidy: Windfall can replace federal funding
The Union Leader, Manchester, NH | November 7, 2003 | editorial


334 posted on 11/07/2003 5:54:03 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
To be a pure celebrity--to be famous for being famous--is to live and die by PR.

Journalists are celebrities.

Whoever says something which flatters a journalist will therefore get good PR in return.

The thing which most flatters the journalist is to be called objective.

335 posted on 11/07/2003 6:18:27 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
"Why does 'bias in the media' exist?"
Easy, when a democratic government has the power to control property, all it takes to control the marketplace is to manipulate public opinion. Control of communications media to consolidate political forces becomes the means to control the factors of production and the key to the control of wealth.

There's a reason they call it, "our democracy."

Yes, but why is it necessary to do studies proving the existence of "bias in the media" even to some conservatives? The government censorship is never over except in ways--FCC in particular--generally but thoughtlessly considered benign.
336 posted on 11/12/2003 8:17:47 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: Carry_Okie
"Why does 'bias in the media' exist?"
Easy, when a democratic government has the power to control property, all it takes to control the marketplace is to manipulate public opinion. Control of communications media to consolidate political forces becomes the means to control the factors of production and the key to the control of wealth.

There's a reason they call it, "our democracy."

Yes, but why is it necessary to do studies proving the existence of "bias in the media" even to some conservatives? The government censorship is never overt except in ways--the FCC in particular--generally but thoughtlessly considered benign.
337 posted on 11/12/2003 8:21:23 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
Yes, but why is it necessary to do studies proving the existence of "bias in the media" even to some conservatives?

It study probably isn't for the benefit of conservatives but to prove to liberals that the bias in fact exists. Of course, if the press figures out the metrics, all they will do is to get more subtle.

338 posted on 11/12/2003 8:25:55 AM PST by Carry_Okie (The environment is too complex and too important to manage by politics.)
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To: Hemingway's Ghost
Bravo. You've explained the impossibility of objectivity, and shown that the problem is twofold: 1) lack of competing outlets to the mainstream left , and 2) the leftist elite media are lying about their obvious socialist slant.

They have the nerve to argue that that is no bias. The public is (finally) discovering the truth and the left is getting desperate.
339 posted on 11/12/2003 8:36:52 AM PST by moodyskeptic (weekend warrior in the culture war)
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To: Carry_Okie
[The] study probably isn't for the benefit of conservatives but to prove to liberals that the bias in fact exists. Of course, if the press figures out the metrics, all they will do is to get more subtle.
I put it to you that liberals hear exactly what they believe when journalists are talking--and consequently are essentially impervious to any evidence that the journalists are putting their thumb on the scale. Only people with at least some conservative leanings are susceptible to argument--and it frequently takes a good deal of evidence to convince them.

But this thread addresses the issue of why the "bias" exists without assuming a conspiracy. Why, apart from government censorship, the "bias" should be expected to exist.


340 posted on 11/12/2003 10:09:16 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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