Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate

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.

Last June, when I tut-tutted the Page 1 placement of Michiko Kakutani's review of Bill Clinton's "My Life," I think I missed the point: a front page position for an opinion piece may have been odd, but publishing a review of a 957-page book barely 24 hours after it arrived in Kakutani's hands was even odder, unless you buy the premise that speed equals virtue. The Pulitzer judges who awarded Kakutani her prize in 1998 cited "her passionate, intelligent writing on books and contemporary literature," not her speed-reading capabilities. The timing of both the cadaver story and the Clinton review, and their consequent claim on front-page real estate, are symptoms of a persistent genetic disposition. Some newspaper people seem to regard beating the competition as the opposable thumb of journalism, an essential characteristic that distinguishes winners from losers. I think it's more like the tailbone, a vestigial remnant from the era when reporters were still swinging from the trees - that distant time when New York had eight daily papers, and newsboys in knickers prowled the streets shouting "Extra!" whenever their papers had something the other guys didn't.

Darwinian selection might have weeded out the weaker specimens, but the traits that kept them alive for years haven't disappeared. Today, breaking news belongs to those who deliver electronically, so reportorial wiles become the chief weapons in this meaningless war.

All very well to say that the "scoop" is an anachronism in print journalism, jut journalism as a genre of nonfiction is defined by the attempt to be the first to tell a story. For that reason, journalism is inherently superficial. It makes far better sense to read and reflect on the editorial page rather than the front page of a paper. The front page claims to be disinterested but is superficial and heavily slanted toward the sensational; the editorial page OTOH is frankly opinionated, and the reader makes his/her own judgement of how much to discount that tendentiousness, and in what way.
Journalism claims to be "the first draft of history" - but journalism systematically ignores the big picture and draws attention to the sensational - and "first reports are often wrong."
EXTRA! EXTRA! Read Not Quite Everything About It! [NY Times Pulbic Editor]
New York Times ^ | April 10, 2005 | DAN OKRENT

every single teacher has a right to his or her own opinion. In fact, I would rather that they have an opinion than not.

People have perspectives. People who are open about their perspective - "I am an American conservative," or "I am an American socialist" - position themselves as being philosophical (the term "philosophy," after all, simply means "love of wisdom" - which is entirely different from claiming to be wise).
People who claim to be "moderate," or "objective," OTOH, position themselves as being sophists (since "moderation" and "objectivity" are virtues, to claim either of them is to claim superior wisdom and thus to arrogantly talk down to people who in principle may know something that you should listen to).

But, they have a responsibility to differentiate between teaching their assigned subject, and politically indoctrinating their students. There can be no commingling of the two in a public school.

When a geography teacher teaches about places and the cultures to be found in them, that teacher speaks with authority and presumptively can cite noncontroversial references for whatever he says. When a teacher teaches the perspective of one political party only, that is obviously an abuse. Yet, even "balancing" Fahrenheit 911 with Fahrenhype 911 simply compounds the felony - because the actual felony is not telling only one side, but inculcuating the idea that the students should accept political discourse in binary, Read-Only, form.
That isn't the only way to do politics - and it's certainly not the way we do it here at FR.

School Indoctrination: A forum owner's son watches Fahrenheit 9/11 in a high School GEOGRAPHY class!
The Annoyed Army | April 12, 2005 | The Annoyed Man

Mac mini, iPod help drive Apple's profit higher (Net income up 530%)
Reuters | April 13, 2005

...but for the life of me I can't understand why [Steve Jobs is] still a liberal...

People who do "intellectual" work (I'm a software engineer, EE, BTW (NOT IT!)) and make it big, often haven't really struggled to survive or been through real hardships. I'm not talking about working overtime to meet a deadline. I mean using your back or brawn to do a boring job day-in and day-out to barely keep food on the table.
Thus, they haven't learned to appreciate the small things in life and be thankful to God for their life. Many will attribute the liberalism to guilt. IMO, it's not so much guilt per se, but as it is just having led a somewhat sheltered life and then getting rich for thinking up stuff (that other people have to actually build). Plus people like Steve get by by talking a good game. Getting by and getting rich on your social "skills" seems to me to be the prime reason for rich liberals. Look at Hollywood. They can't even produce an original movie anymore. And their lives are so phoney and fickle. Always looking for something to fill the void...
Beside, most of us engineers know that it was Steve Woznick who did most (if not all) of the work on the original Apple. Jobs was the salesman/businessman side of the partnership.
One last jab, although I haven't heard anything about her, I suspect Steve Woznick's ex-wife falls into this category as well. She made huge bank when her and W. divorced and she got half of his Apple shares. Compare this with Ta-Ray-Za Hines, who never really worked a day in her life: going from her father's house to a billionaire husband. She has no idea what it is to actually create your own destiny and wealth.
24 posted on 04/13/2005 11:23:18 PM EDT by Clock King
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Your interesting analysis is at least as related to this ongoing thread about the causes of "bias in the media" as it is to a thread about Apple Computer.

My basic thesis is that liberalism is (as Rush puts it) a "gutless choice" - because the incentives of the genre of nonfiction known as "journalism" produces a propaganda wind in favor of it. That is, if you don't have any principled beliefs about an issue, and are put on the spot to discuss the issue, the easy way to sound nice is what is called "liberalism."

Trouble is, journalism needs people to criticize because if everyone's a hero, then nobody can be a hero. And the easy, safe people to criticize are the responsible people; they have something to lose by striking back and - since they make decisions - they make mistakes and suboptimal decisions. So they are easy to second-guess.

So you would think that journalists are the businessman's natural enemy. And you'd be right, except that journalists tend to extract "protection money" in the form of having the businessman take on a liberal coloration - become either outright liberals or RINOs on the model of John McCain.

BTW, I'm an engineer myself (retired). One thing to say that Wozniak did all the heavy duty logic work on the Apple II, and another thing entirely to credit him with the whole thing. The example of Thomas Edison is very interesting: he is known as "the inventor of the electric light." But the crucial point is that he didn't just announce a scientific discovery, he founded General Electric Corporation to make the light bulbs and the Consolidated Edison company to provide power for them. It's really neat to invent something, but to really do the job you have to create the enterprises necessary to bring it to market.

But I like your point that a Steve Jobs - or a Hollywood type - can get rich without getting their hands dirty, and having done so can delude themselves the meaning of that. Most of us just have to run a "four yards and a cloud of dust offence" - if everyone tried to be a movie star who would make or service automobiles? Who would grow our food?

Bias can work both ways.

That is true, in principle. But there is an important difference between listening to an avowedly conservative or avowedly "liberal" commentator, on the one hand, and listening to a putatively "objective" journalist.
It has been known since Socrates that fair debate can only occur between parties who are modest enough to claim only a desire or love of wisdom rather than arrogantly claiming wisdom itself. The Greek word for "brotherly love" is "philo" - as in "philadelphia," "the city of brotherly love." The Greek word for wisdom is "sophy" - hence, the word for an honest debater is "philosopher." And the word for a tendentious debater derives from the Greek for "wisdom" itself - "sophistry."
So the openly conservative (or "liberal") commentator is "philosophical," but people who claim to transcend the limited perspectives of mere mortals - people who claim the virtue either of "objectivity" or of "moderation" are sophists. Jounalism, therefore, is in principle a hotbed of tendentiousness. You will say that journalism is restricted to truthtelling and cannot be tendentious - but that begs the question not only as to whether some of what journalism tells us might actually be wrong, but as to whether the news is what is important or merely what is interesting because it is novel.
My critique of journalism is that it is arrogant in claiming objectivity, is superficial because of its deadlines, and is negative because cheap criticism and second-guessing makes its practitioners and its audience feel superior to people who make mistakes because they act rather than merely talking. And my critique of "liberals" is that they follow journalism rather than leading - and journalists give them credit rather than criticism for taking leadership positions and then scapegoating rather than leading.

Fox News host: Repeat after me New York Daily News ^ | 4/15/05 | Llyod Grove

Writing a paper on conservatism headsonpikes, thanks for the ping.

In my introduction I am trying to come up with a succint definition of conservatism.

Rots of ruck. You will have to decide for yourself what the definition is. I will however make some suggestions:
The Theme Is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition by M. Stanton Evans.
That's a must-read for conservatives, IMHO - but you don't necessarily have time to read the whole thing in the midst of the time pressure of a deadline for a paper. That's why you count on me to summarize. The "theme" to which the book's title refers is the theme of American conservatism. As Evans notes, conservatism relates to the particular polity and society you are considering: if you were talking about German conservatism or Russian conservatism or Chinese conservatism you would not say that the theme of conservatism in those places is freedom.
OK, that's Evans on American conservatism. What about American Beliefs by John McElroy?
McElroy notes that there were four main colonial powers in America, and each of them found different things and wanted to do different things:

Spain found bronze-age civilization, and conquered them in a conventional manner as they would have liked to have done in Europe, especially England. Since they found a going concern their only interest was in dominating and exploiting it, rather than creating it. So the only people they sent to their colonies were soldiers and gentlemen to be in charge. No Spanish peons need apply.

France found in Canada not a going bronze-age civilization but a stone age one. But like Spain, France's primary motivation was control - of navigation of the St. Lawrence River - and trade with the natives. So there was need of traders, but mostly of gentlemen and soldiers to control. Very few peons, even French ones and certainly none other, were neededD

Portugal found stone age peoples in Brazil. In order to exploit Brazil they sent over workers - in the form of African slaves. Plus of course, gentlemen to control the operation.

England (it wasn't Great Britain until later) found in the portion of North America which it was able to claim nothing but stone-age people and forests. The land was rich and had tremendous agricultural potential but wasn't farmland until it had been laboriously cleared of trees and vines. The English colonists found that gentlemen were pretty useless; what the situation cried out for was farmers. So England sent over poor people - some, including some of my ancestors, came from Lutheran Germany - and so the American polity was dominated by practical people (even if they often had religious motivations for wanting to come, still they learned that the situation required diligent work).

The conclusion is that Americans respect any honest work. If you reflect on English costume drama, you will realize that we didn't get that attitude from England - where the emphasis was on who you were rather than what you did - but in the American melieu where people who were respected because they were useful, and were respected for the caluses on their hands.
Now consider the Constitution of the United States of America. That obviously defines American conservatism. And what defines the Constitution (which, BTW, is considered to crowning achievement of the Enlightenment) is its preamble. There we find an echo of "the theme is freedom" in the mission statement "to preserve the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"."
In the reference to "posterity" - which variously can mean "descendants" or, more generally, "those who live after us" - defines conservatism as preserving something for the future. That seems to make sense for a definition of conservatism except if you consider the object being preserved. Liberty, after all, is the possibility of doing things differently than your parents did them. Working in different occupations, inventing new ways of doing things. "Liberty" is about the strangest possible form of "conservatism."
In fact, American conservatives weren't always called "conservatives." Historically we were "liberals." Why then is "liberalism" a dreaded label to shun when you are running for political office? For the simple reason that the word was misappropriated and run into the ground by people who had the ability to manipulate the language - journalists and intellectuals - and who had an agenda other than "liberty." Their agenda was the overthrow of liberty, and they hit on a way of subverting it. They took the word for the public - the word "society" - and appropriated it into the coined word "socialism."
I put it to you that the word "social" has nothing inherently to do with leftism; there's nothing "social" about a business call from a policeman. If you are an American Conservative you probably have learned to check your wallet whenever you hear someone use the term "social" or "society," and you are right to do so. Because leftists adopted the form of usage of the term which inverts its natural meaning. When a leftist says "society" s/he means nothing other than "government."
That is the con. Because "liberty" is only what remains when you subtract "government" from "society." If there be no difference between "society" and "government," then "liberty" is logically excluded. And that is the leftist project.
Well, where was I? I was saying that "liberalism" is a word which once related to "liberty" and applied to the people who are now in America called "conservatives." The transformation of the meaning of "liberalism" occurred in America before it happened anywhere else. Indeed it still hasn't happened everywhere. If you hear or read a foreigner refering to "liberalism" you have to do a context check to determine whether they refer to leftism or to American "conservatism." The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek is a 1944 clasic which was reprinted many times, as recently as 1994. In a foreword to one of the printings, Hayek bewailed not only the fact that his use of the word "liberalism" was so easily misunderstood in America but the fact that that essentially "indispensible word" had been destroyed as far as Americans were concerned. IMHO that destruction had already been accomplished in America by the time of the advent of the FDR Administration. Because FDR used the deformed American version of "liberalism" entirely unselfconsciously.
I put it to you that the reason that America's leftists, and not the leftists of other nations, misappropriated the label "liberalism" lies in the fact that the term "socialism" - which I have noted is deceitful in its etymology - was a smashing success outside the US but a flop inside America. We already had a country which was governed by society; you couldn't promise us one in name which was actually "governmentism" (tyranny) in practice and con us into thinking you were offering nirvana. ("Socialism" in leftist speak actually means "governmentism" in plain talk, since as I noted earlier leftists always mean "government" when they say "social" or "society" - or, for that matter, "public").
I realize that you asked for a "succinct" definition of "conservatism." But I did warn you that it wouldn't be simple to be "succinct" and still be at all accurate. And your problem is compounded by the fact that your professor is almost certainly far too leftist to give much of anything I have said here a respectful hearing.

That's the way things are in today's America. If you ever make any comment or suggest in any way that you don't think that it's a good idea for religious groups to attempt to use the law to promote their religious ideals you are "anti-Christian" and a "Christian basher."

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? - Washington's Farewell Address (A. Hamilton, speechwriter)

The system of those who would "exclude religious principle" is to promote the conceit that anything beyond praying in your own closet is "an Establishment of religion." Not true. "An Establishment of religion" is a church funded by the national treasury, and/or with advantages given to those who attend it. Anything less than that is constitutional, as this author should know. And to propose that no religious symbol ever be placed on government property is to propose the removal of all religios symbols in military cemetaries. It is nothing less than a project to destroy the national memory.

There is however an actual Establishment based on the favor of the government and having political and religious implications. Broadcasting as we know it could not exist without the censorship of all but the few whom the government favors with licenses. And broadcasting - especially broadcast journalism, which the government promotes - contains the planted axiom that what is unusual and novel is what is important.

And the Bible - and church tradition - is neither unusual nor novel - it is the most common book in the country and it doesn't change.

SETBACK FOR REPUBLICANS
Neal Nuze ^ | 04/25/05 | Neal Boortz

Liberalism is a Sin . CHAPTER 2 WHAT LIBERALISM IS
Protestantism naturally begets toleration of error. Rejecting the principle of authority in religion, it has neither criterion nor definition of faith. On the principle that every individual or sect may interpret the deposit of revelation according to the dictates of private judgement, it gives birth to endless differences and contradictions. Impelled by the law of its own impotence, through lack of any decisive voice of authority in matters of faith, it is forced to recognize as valid and orthodox any belief that springs from the exercise of private judgement. Therefore does it finally arrive, by force of its own premises, at the conclusion that one creed is as good as another; it then seeks to (16) shelter its inconsistency under the false plea of liberty of conscience. Belief is not imposed by a legitimately and divinely constituted authority, but springs directly and freely from the unrestricted exercise of the individual's reason or caprice upon the subjectmatter of revelation. The individual or sect interprets as it pleases, rejecting or accepting what it chooses. This is popularly called liberty of conscience. Accepting this principle, Infidelity on the same plea rejects all revelation, and Protestantism, which handed over the premise, is powerless to protest against the conclusion; for it is clear that one, who under the plea of rational liberty has the right to repudiate any part of revelation that may displease him, can not logically quarrel with one, who on the same ground repudiates the whole. If one creed is as good as another on the plea of rational liberty, on the same plea no creed is as good as any. Taking the field with this fatal weapon of Rationalism, Infidelity has stormed and taken the very citadel of Protestantism helpless against the foe of its own making.

Being a quote from an old book not written in the US, the reader has to understand that the author intends "liberalism" to mean First Amendment freedom. The quote above is, from the POV of an authoritarian, a nice critique of the First Amendment to The Constitution of the United States.

Accept the premise that the Catholic Church can't be wrong, and everything else follows. In the limit, in fact, an inquisition follows. Which is a nice explanation for the existence of pamplets such as one I remember seeing in my youth entitled, American Freedom and Catholic Power. And for the fact that JFK's religion was an issue in the 1960 election.

The bottom line is, IMHO, that our religious diversity precludes an actual Establishment of Religion in America. The biggest denomination has anti-First Amendment logic to it - but the smaller ones do too, and they understand that an Establishment of religion will not be Establishment of their religion. Indeed, the Catholics understand that too - and all Christians have reason to understand that the only Establishment with which any Christians are seriously threatened is the journalism Establishment.

Journalism is an establishment which claims that all of is members are objective - which implies the claim that all of its members are wise. It has been known since Socrates that claiming wisdom positions one as a tyrant (or tyrant wannabe) who does not accept the legitimacy of dissent from their uniquely "wise" perspective. Journalism has as a planted axiom not only an arrogant claim of wisdom but the fundamentally irreligious perspective that only the unusual and the novel (no ancient scripture neeed apply) are important.

The First Amendment is the codification of the Socratic concept that political and religious questions must be open to debate. And although everyone would like to have their own ideas made the Establishment in America and the world at large, everyone - Osamma bin Laden, Pope Benedict, you name it - must live with the fact that open debate is the rule of America. There can be no legitimate "establishment" in America.

Experts say that in many ways lawyers representing the news media have done a remarkable job over the last three decades turning an essentially adverse ruling in Branzburg to their advantage, arguing with success in many instances that the news media does have a privilege to protect sources.
The media's lawyers relied on language in Branzburg by then-Justice Lewis Powell, who wrote a separate concurring opinion that was somewhat sympathetic to the press.

"It was a classic case of making lemonade out of lemons, and to a large extent it worked; the problem is, now the courts aren't buying it anymore," said Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and the law at the University of Minnesota.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
That single sentence lumps together freedom of religious expression, freedom of speech, freedom to use technical means to publish, and freedom of political speech. From the First Amendment's perspective they are all just one big ball of wax.
There is no distinction between freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It follows that the courts should do for me as a speaker what they would do for you as a journalist. If they won't allow me to stonewall a subpoena of information just because I'm a speaker, they have no reason to allow you as a journalist to stonewall a subpoena.
Likewise when Democrats in Congress assay to decide that someone shouldn't be allowed in the "press room" at the White House, when the president chooses to answer questions from particular individuals they are prattling about things completely apart from their jurisdiction. Bush could invite any individual he chooses into the "press room" or the oval office or his private quarters, and discuss any topic he chooses to with him or her. What is that to Congress??
What that is, of course, is Democratic members of Congress carrying water for the Establishment known as "objective journalism." That Establishment self-selects on the criteria of adherence to the liberal concensus; its members implicitly agree that an attack on the credibility of one is an attack on the credibility of all. Journalism's very own NATO pact, not written on paper and signed but agreed to by common consent.
Media Struggles to Protect Sources
AP on Yahoo ^ | 4/26/05 | Pete Yost - AP

As Steven Den Beste once observed: That's the critical transition from non-zero-sum to zero-sum. Once the market saturates, you can only grow at the expense of a competitor. Which finally leads up to the key insight I had a couple of days ago: during the non-zero-sum expansion stage, it is the virtues of each competitor which decide how well they prosper. But after the switch to zero-sum competition, it is their faults which decide who will die.
Alternatively, perhaps we've moved to a non-zero-sum period in which mediocrity is no longer enough. I'm inclined to suspect the latter, but it's certainly clear that something's changed, and that traditional media are doing poorly out of it. The Big Media organizations have their faults -- chiefly laziness, political groupthink, and a tendency to condescend to their audiences -- and those are starting to cost them. I don't know if they will actually die out, though the numbers for newspaper circulation and readership aren't very promising, but they are certainly threatened. (Things aren't quite as bad in the TV world, but television news is approaching the demographics of Matlock pretty fast.) For those armies of Davids, of course, there's no guarantee that they will prosper over the long term either. The march of media evolution won't stop for the benefit of blogs, and I predict that within a few years blogs as we know them today will have changed dramatically. But there's much more to new and alternative media than simply blogs -- and, regardless, it seems clear that the media world of the next decade won't look much like that of the 20th Century. Given the disappointing performance of the media Goliaths, that's probably just as well.
MEDIA TIPPING POINT Where Free Markets Meet Technology
TechCentralStation ^ | 04/27/05 | TechCentralStation
By Glenn Harlan Reynolds

I see your point about FCC licenses, and how the government could if they wished apply censorship to the very ones who have these licenses today. (It would be politically tough on the government if the media was to take on the fight.) So the government bends over backwards to appear to require general benefit to the public. They accept that a liberal station runs military recruitment adds in the dead airspace of early morning and counts it as time spent on public service. It is not, and everybody knows it.

I can see the need to regulate stations transmiting power and frequencies. Without this service all broadcasts would be jammed. (Look at Mexico jamming some of our stations). If the government ever makes a move on a station based on politics it will have its head handed to it by an elitist judge.

Exactly. When I created this thread I nursed a dim hope that SCotUS would honor the plain meaning of the First Amendment, at least incrementally, by putting the FCC and its licensees on a watch list like white men are on a watch list when it comes to racism.
Recent history does not favor such illusions. McCain-Feingold intends to violate the First Amendment, and all three branches of the government signed off on it. We agree that the regulation which enables broadcasting as we know it is inconsistent with the First Amendment as it applies to print. And yet I think McCain-Feingold even purports to apply to print and to, of all things which the First Amendment most clearly assays to protect, political agitation during a political campaign.

The internet, and private publication are the tools that can balance the elite broadcast media. And more recently Fox (already with a broadcast license) decided to show the more conservative side of the news.

Fox unfortunately is (or at least was - I don't imbibe broadcast TV much, aside from football games) conservative only on the cable Fox News Channel, and not particularly so on broadcast. Given the difference in the audience size of broadcast and cable, it would be a real boon if Fox would broadcast its cable news shows.

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