. . . The explanation for the misconceptions about the supposed unpopularity of Mr. Bush and the war is that the press regurgitates the press releases of protesters while ignoring the evidence
In the long run there is really only one issue in my mind: "Is it possible to have a free press, and yet actually to have a government which is distinct from it?" And that is actually to ask, "Is it possible to have a free press at all?" For if the government cannot be distinct from the press, that implies that "the press" is itself unitary--not a cacphony of competing voices but actually a single voice.To state the question in that way is to sound absurd; I actually agree that we have a multitude of competing institutions such as The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, and the broadcast news media. Yet there is, operating in plain sight, a de facto conspiracy in restraint of trade in "the press."
That is, journalism defines itself as "the press," even though "the freedom of . . . the press" covers books which are not journalism at all. And journalism defines itself as "the press," despite the fact that broadcasting is not recognized as a right in the way that printing is. If broadcast journalism is part of "the press" under the First Amendment--and thus has "unabridged freedom"--then you have just as much right to start up your own broadcast news operation as WABC does--without so much as a "by your leave" to the government.
Not only is it true that journalism defines itself as "the press," the judiciary branch of the government declines to maintain independence from journalism. Were it not so, such a blatant contradiction could not possibly stand in law. The First Amendment as written would, if enforced, keep the government entirely out of judging whether any form of "speech" is "objective journalism"; the FCC is itself root and branch a negation of that sort of freedom. Say nothing of "Campaign Finance Reform" which proposes actually to regulate the printing of political newspaper ads.
The truth is that "the press" as it self-defines has no interest in the First Amendment as written. It does however love "the First Amendment" as they pretend it to be--a stricture against independent voices (especially freedom of religion) rather than against the enforcement of uniformity in speech, press, and assembly/petition. :
Bush's British support
Washington Times | 11/23/03
The centralizing PR tendency started with the expensive high-speed printing press, and continued with the establishment of rationed, big-budget broadcasting licenses.If you pay attention you will realize that the first principle of those one-way mass media is that one-way mass media are where to find out "what is going on." That is, although the individual broadcasters or newspapers do hype their own publications in particular, they almost as assiduously avoid flame wars with all of the others. IOW, one-way mass media are courage-free zones.
Talk radio, OTOH, arose as the solution to the obsolescence of AM radio and the consequent reduction in the cost (market value) of AM broadcasting time. Talk radio breaks the rule against criticizing "objective"--i.e., gutless--journalism.
The existence of the niche for criticism of "objective journalism" can be explained in a couple of ways. One view is that there are a lot of kooks in the country who can't face the objective truth. The other view is that the claim of objectivity is intrinsically arrogant, and is sustained only by an open, plainly visible "conspiracy" to concentrate and abuse propaganda ("public relations") power.
Which of the two is more nearly correct? The two explanations can be judged, in the long run, by the predictions which would follow from them. If consensus journalism is objective, critiques of it on talk radio and on the Internet are distinctly limited niches for the kooks, and have little political importance.
If OTOH consensus journalism is a blinkered worldview in which novelty and man-bites-dog oddity are given wildly exaggerated importance at the expense of mature perspective, explicitly conservative talk radio and interactive internet (hello?) must tend to subvert pretentions to objectivity which are supported only by mere cowardice. In the latter case, slander against explicitly conservative politicians and commentators will gradually lose traction and the party which relies on it will change either by becoming less anticonservative or by shrinking as its base ages and the youth find it musty and reactionary.
'Tech elite' choose Web over TV
The Washington Times ^ | November 24, 2003 | Tim Lemke