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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
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.

False premise. Once we fell for regulatory control of the free enterprise in the name of protecting public health and safety (thanks you REPUBLICAN Teddy Roosevelt), it became possible to use democratic power to control the use of property. At that point, to make money, one need only control public opinion.

That's why.

533 posted on 04/02/2004 9:17:41 AM PST by Carry_Okie (There are people in power who are truly evil.)
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To: Carry_Okie
Indeed. But of course my point is that the decision to buy the paper at all is an entertainment decision - we buy the paper because we are bored. And because the product the public actually buys is entertainment, not enlightenment (although positioning the reader as being interested in enlightenment is a valuable marketing tool for the newspaper), the actual mission of the journalist differs from the (putative) mission of the historian - the focus of the journalist is on the negative things which grip your attention. And such things tend to grip your attention even if those things are distasteful to you.

Which explains why it can be profitable for the journalist to publish stories with anticonservative themes. Even conservatives are attracted to the stories, even though they yell back at the reporter as they read them. Indeed there scarcely exists a conservative front page in the country - Washington Times and NY Post might be exceptions. But the Wall Street Journal definitely is not.


536 posted on 04/06/2004 8:00:24 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (No one is as subjective as the person who knows he is objective.)
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