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.

He misses the key difference: If you want to compete with Limbaugh's partisan publication in the marketplace of ideas, you can simply start your own publication right next to his. But if you set up your own competing broadcast program right next to a Limbaugh station on the radio dial, without acquiring a government license, you will be prosecuted. Broadcastfrequencies are limited; printing presses are not. That's the legal -- and practical -- underpinning of the Fairness Doctrine.

That is the legal rationale, but it is in contravention of the First Amendment and it is impractical.
The planted axiom in the Fairness Doctrine - and indeed in FCC broadcast licensing - is that the government (in whatever guise, bureaucratic or otherwise) can judge fairness. Read the First Amendment and you will not find any justification for that conceit. The First Amendment expresses the right of the people to speak and print their own opinions, on their own dime, to their hearts' content. That means, as journalists love to say, that journalists are free to tell the truth. It also means that journalists are free to be extremely partisan.
Journalists are free under the First Amendment, but no more so than gun owners are free under the Second Amendment. Indeed, although the First Amendment nowhere stipulates that it is necessary that the Sultzberg family own a printing press, the Second Amendment stipulates that a militia is "necessary" and that gun ownership is protected for that reason. So newspapers are free but they must fend for themselves economically. No newspaper is inherently in the public interest.
Yet the planted axiom of the Fairness Doctrine is that journalism is objective and is in the public interest. That could not be proved even if it were true - you can't prove a negative of lack of bias - but even worse, it is provably false. Bad news for the public is good for the journalism business. If it bleeds, it leads. That is the economic interest of journalism, and it interests the public - but that is not identical to the public interest. News that terrifies you, interests you without at all being in your interest.
Once recognize that journalism's interest is not the public interest, and the conceit that journalism is objective collapses of its own arrogance. The government has no legitimate authority to judge between The New York Times - or any broadcaster who parrots it - and Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken or anyone else. The conceit that the Fairness Doctrine is constitutional is absurd from a First Amendment perspective.
Silencing conservatives on the airwaves
WND ^ | 01-12-2007 | Melanie Morgan
Posted on 01/12/2007 8:32:02 PM EST by BlueJ7

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the object of fawning media coverage despite the scandal of producing a child from an extramarital affair, argued before the conference for “the right to be heard” and insisted that the major media were not telling the real story of pain and suffering in George Bush’s America.

What jumped out at me was Jesse Jackson arguing for "the right to be heard". Where exactly is that outlined in the Constitution? AirHead America had a right to build its broadcast network and spout whatever they pleased. Trouble is, nobody listened. I guess their "right to be heard" comes with a corresponding power to force people to listen. What's most frightening is that they may well get their way.

We don't have a "right to be heard," and we don't have a "right to the truth." What we have is a right to our own opinions, and the right to speak and spend our own money publishing our opinions. But nobody has to listen.
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

Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin Franklin

Special Report: The Plan To Silence Conservatives
News By Us ^ | (01/15/07) | Cliff Kincaid

Okay, like Maverick in Top Gun, I'm going to engage.

As I've noted in other threads, my belief is the MSM is nothing more than a network of marketing firms with the DNC as their largest client. This marketing collective is comprised of ad copy writers and spokespersons posing as credentialed journalists. Pulitzers serve to establish credibility in the minds of average American's where none is due.

On the left, everyone with self-perceived influence expects their marketing pitch to be heard via the MSM because it is understood the MSM is employed by the DNC to get its message out. Any story that credits the right in anyway is perceived as conservative bias.

To perpetuate this fraud, the MSM must walk a thin line and not be too obvious about their true business; Marketing of a political client. Those on the right see the problem clearly, but no critical mass for significant change exists so the MSM continues to push the limits unfettered.

Now look at the situation again; Jesse paid for air time by delivering the black vote to the DNC. In turn the DNC should open its marketing channels and resources up to the good reverend. This is what he meant by right to be heard. I was a slip for which I'm sure someone at the DNC talked to him about.

BOMBSHELL 1:
There is no association between Objective Journalism/News and the MSM. Objective Jounalism/Reporting is the antithesis of Marketing and therefor the antithesis of the MSM.

BOMBSHELL 2:
There is NO BIAS in the MSM, except for conservative BIAS. Again, the MSM markets for the DNC. Any ad copy that puts the conservative in a neutral or better than neutral light is not acceptible to the DNC or those it represents and is therefor perceived on the left as conservative BIAS and noted as such by liberal celebrities and others. In there minds, based on this model they have a point.

My suggestion is to start outing the MSM as the marketing firms they are. The masterful illusion of BIAS created by the left to mask their true nature is simply false and is causing a great deal of tail chasing on the right.

BOMBSHELL 3:
Newsbusters, Media Research Center, Rush Limbaugh are NOT HELPING the situation with their continued use of the word "bias" and "media". Both of which imply some expectation of objectivity, which only serves to perpetute the fraud and confuse the conservative movement.

Eddie01

Newsbusters, Media Research Center, Rush Limbaugh are NOT HELPING the situation with their continued use of the word "bias" and "media". Both of which imply some expectation of objectivity, which only serves to perpetute the fraud and confuse the conservative movement.

I agree that, since everyone - including the supposedly "objective" reporters and editors - is entitled to their own opinion, and entitled to express their opinion, the idea of "bias in the media" is fallacious. And that it is disadvantageous to call journalists "biased."
Their opinion is, simply, their opinion - and they can express that opinion openly or they can insinuate their opinion by what they emphasize, what they deemphasize, and what information they simply ignore. And they can do that on the editorial page and they can do that on the front page - constitutionally there is no difference. When you complain about "bias" you are actually arguing from the premise which they have deceptively promulgated. The premise that journalism should be objective.
Journalism is politics.

The relation between "the MSM" and the Democratic Party is interesting and challenging. Many conservatives claim that the Democratic Party has the MSM in its pocket; you say something simiar when you speak of the MSM as marketing firms whose client is the Democratic Party.
But another way of looking at it is to consider that journalists promote journalism, and believe that journalism should control politics. But of course to speak of journalism controlling politics is to reject the idea of independence among journalists. And by and large that comports with observed reality - journalists don't challenge the "objectivity" of other journalists. They are in full go-along-and-get-along mode. That is understandable if you consider that, for the price of not challenging any other journalist, you buy the ability to be considered "objective" by all other journalists. Flame wars would be bad for profits.
Rush Limbaugh says he isn't a journalist, by which he means that he has a perspective - conservatism - and does not claim to be objective. That is actually a philosophical position - he admits that wisdom exists and he aspires to it - but he does not argue from the assumption that he is wise.
"Objectivity" is difficult to seperate from wisdom. After all, whoever heard of unwise objectivity? So the "objective" journalist actually argues from a claim of his own wisdom. And in so doing he is guilty of sophistry:

I am wise.
You don't even claim to be wise.
Therefore I am right and you are wrong.

My thesis is that "liberalism," "moderation," "centrism," and "progressivism" are virtuous labels given by journalists to people who promote the idea that journalism is important. Journalists reserve "objectivity" as a label which they award only to themselves.

Pelosi wants all "grassroots" organizations that communicate with 500 or more people to register with the Congress, file financials quaterly, and to report separately on each and every issue they advocate. Unions, corporations, etc, exempted, of course.

That's Senate Bill 1. Call your senators and ask them to vote to remove Section 220. (The bill is actually about lobbying reform, but Section 220 tramples free speech.)
. . . except that his senators are Boxer and another Democratic woman, and my senators are Hillary and Chuck. And "actually about lobbying reform" pretty much is "trampling on free speech."
You know what's most important over at the Upper House. Staying in the Upper House of course.

They always have been for free speech...as long as the speech in question recites their talking points. And, they have the cojones to call OUR side of the aisle fascistic.
Some would say that they are for their own free speech because they have "the mainstream media" on their side. I put it differently - in promoting itself, Big Journalism promotes cheap talk, and in promoting themselves Democratic politicians promote cheap talk. By "cheap talk" I mean what Theodore Roosevelt meant when he said, "It is not the critic who counts . . . The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . ."
Journalism aspires to predominant influence, and yet journalism doesn't do anything. In order to arrogate to themselves more credit than those who produce and distribute our food, clothing and shelter and those who provide security, journalism criticizes the providers relentlessly - and Big Journalism fights against the freedom to publicize views in opposition to that.
Undoubtedly it would not be well for anyone to be totally immune to criticism, so in that sense people with the motive to nitpick no doubt have a role to play. The great problem is that

Journalism has coalesced into Big Journalism - an entity with a single, self-serving viewpoint organized around the sophistry of the claim that Big Journalism provides, and America must have, objective journalism. And,

Many people, from the middle class (known as "the poor" but having a standard of living which is the envy of most of the world today and would have been the envy of the rich in 1800) through the strata to the wealthiest, put themselves on the side of Big Journalism and in opposition to those who "are actually in the arena." Even though most of them are themselves "actually in the arena" in some circumstances.
A move by this political force to muzzle opposition is dangerous; up until 1992 it had been forty years since the Republicans had a majority in the House, and sixty years since the Republicans had been politically dominant in the country. But at least it may get the issue of free speech and press back in front of SCOTUS, with Alito and Roberts on the bench in place of O'Connor and Rhenquist (whose 1-1 split allowed McCain to be upheld on a 5-4 vote).

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
"Citizenship in a Republic," Theodore Roosevelt, Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

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

Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin Franklin

AIM: Congressional Liberals Bare Plan to Muzzle Conservative Speech
U.S. Newswire on Yahoo ^ | 1/15/07 | AIM

a senior officer of the state ACLU admitted to me that content broadcast on the public airwaves is not, in fact, Constitutionally protected. This isn't news to anyone familiar with the relevant history, but it is a major concession in the context of left-wing activism.

It runs counter not only to the interests of PBS but of Rush Limbaugh. My only defense for Rush is the fact that his program is actually, provably, philosophical - whereas "objective" journalism projects a perspective which is actually, provably, sopistry.
That is so because - mock braggadocio aside - Rush does not argue from a claim of virtue, but journalism claims the virtue of objectivity (is that in any wise distinguishable from wisdom?) and assigns to those who are sympatico with journalism's perspective the classical virtue of moderation (a.k.a. "centrism") and the American virtues of liberalism and progressivism. Said differently, Rush takes intelectual challenges seriously, and "liberals" use power to dismiss intellectual challenges by suppressing public curiosity about them to the extent of their considerable PR power.

For more on media bias and its historical roots, I could not do better than to recommend Thomas Frank's The Conquest of Cool. This remarkable work of cultural history documents the historical relationships among the entertainment, journalism, and advertising industries and radical politics from the 1950s onward. It is a damning indictment of media culture, the Rosetta Stone of media bias. Frank's status as a major lib only enhances its credibility.

Your billing of it sounds wonderful, but in following the link you provide I found my eyes glazing over. I just dismiss the "counterculture" as an expression of the culture of journalism. Nothing more than a bunch of "dissenters" on TV railing against "the establishment" - when they were on TV precisely because the actual establishment - Big Journalism - wanted them (and not you or me) there.
Establishment "dissent." You buy that, I've got some dry water to sell you.

The "fairness doctrine' was one-sided all the way. Don't wish it back or pretend it will benefit conservatives. It won't.

A requirement for "fairness" presumes objective judgement of "bias." But then, if the government can be trusted to be objective then the First Amendment is absurd. Which is precisely what, in their heart of hearts, "liberals" believe.
And honest reading of the First Amendment would tell you to expect that journalism is politics. And that, all protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, that judgement applies to the front page, not merely to the editorial page. Considering that
Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin Franklin
it is absurd to think that news can be objective, even with the best of intentions. The First Amemdment presumes a public which understands that
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
The bias of "objective" journalism is its presumption that it can promote journalism above the provision of food, clothing, shelter, security, and fuel and yet be "unbiased." In fact of course,
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt

By functioning as presumptuous critics, journalists promote the socialistic agenda because socialism is nothing more that criticism of capitalists. When the socialist attains power, he becomes paralyzed by the fear of failure and criticism, and therefore makes progress impossible. Yet the journalist will call such people "progressive."

I just dismiss the "counterculture" as an expression of the culture of journalism. Nothing more than a bunch of "dissenters" on TV railing against "the establishment" - when they were on TV precisely because the actual establishment - Big Journalism - wanted them (and not you or me) there.

I'm not sure what you took from the excerpt but Frank's overall point is almost identical to yours: That the "counterculture" was very much a creation and tool of the very establishment it pretended to oppose. He traces its roots to advertising strategies concocted at Doyle Dane Bernbach in the late 50s, especially the "illusion of distinction." This would be history except that Frank also documents the continued dominance of this fraudulent 60s counterculture in the internal culture of the media industry to this day. There are some striking examples in the book. One is an ad from about 1971. It has a stereotyped black radical; giant afro, tie-dyed bell-bottoms, dashiki, mirror-shades; punching his fist in the air and declaring, "The man don't control our music no more!" The ad is for CBS Records, "the man" himself by any reasonable standard. There is also a ridiculous outburst of radical rhetoric from a Nike ad executive circa 1990, along the lines of "what is the purpose of these ads if not to incite people to riot?" This was about the time Nike used "beat generation" drug advocate William Burroughs in its ads, an utterly bizarre juxtaposition when we remember that the product is nominally an athletic shoe. My summary of Frank's work: The "left" as we know it today is little more than an advertising gimmick run amok.

brownsfan: The MSM is ok with minorities being more than equal. It's payback, and they love it. The MSM is full of minorities with a chip and self loathing whites.

With all respect to your intended meaning, I have trouble with that language:

MSM - "mainstream media" - is to me a woefully miscast expression:

"media" is a plural noun, and you are talking about a singular phenomenon - "the media" are all of one accord to such an extent that no one supposes htat ABC or NBC is willing to contradict CBS - or The New York Times, etc.

although fictional movies and TV shows clearly manifest the same perspective that Big Journalism does, the legitimate subject of criticism actually is the tendentious partisanship of so-called "objective" journalism.

"self loathing whites" is an expression I loathe to hear Rush using. After all, the borg of "liberals" (synonyms: "progressives," "moderates," or "centrists" or - except in that the usage only is applied to journalism - "objective") is nothing if not arrogant. The very last thing they are is "self-loathing" or "guilty" feeling. They intentionally cause that confusion by the use of the non-inclusive "we." They heap calumny on "we" without the slightest implication that they hold themselves at all responsible for what "we" have done or plan to do.
Just as the "liberals" / "progressives" / "moderates" / "centrists" / "objective journalists" are all Newspeak for "us good guys," "we" or "us" are Newspeak codes for "you bad guys." Right along with "conservatives" or "right wingers" - or the now-obsolete old-time favorite, "right wing cold warriors."

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

far better than a fairness doctrine would be a "Truth in Media Doctrine." And here's its mandate: When a correspondent is shown on the nightly news, there must be a caption to the effect of, "Dan Rather, Clinton-Gore-Kerry voter" or "Katie Couric, lifelong Democrat."

in reality, ensuring truthfulness is far easier than securing fairness. In fact, how could the latter possibly be achieved? After all, media bias lies not just in how news is reported but also in what they choose to report on in the first place. Why do they decide to focus on sex-discrimination in the construction industry instead of transgressions by abortionists? Why Abu Ghraib instead of the oil-for-food scandal? Why that which helps or harms one cause but not another?

The perspective of journalism is what they do not say, much more than in what they do say. And the fact that what they do say may in fact represent the most exciting things that happened recently does not prove that story selection does not have a strong political tendency.
Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin Franklin
The Barker and the Shill: The Fraud of the Fairness Doctrine
AmericanThinker.com | January 24, 2007 | Selwyn Duke

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