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.
"if it bleeds, it leads"So journalism is negative towards the people/institutions upon whom/which we-the-people depend. That's because you can't ignore a story headlined, "Is your drinking water safe?""there's nothing more worthless than yesterdays' newspaper"
And journalism hypes today's news exactly as if whatever was exciting about what happened yesterday was the most interesting thing that happened since the Titanic sank. Since that is hardly ever the case, journalism is superficial.
The combination of negativity towards what's important to the country and superficial lack of perspective makes journalism inherently anticonservative. Don't ask why journalists follow liberal politicians, look at the fact that liberalism is simply the easy way of sailing with the propaganda wind of journalism.
Journalists and liberal politicians are interchangeable parts.
...or Juan Williams and Mara Liason would've been toast faster than Baghdad Bob was absented after he first stepped into the Klieg lights (in earnest) some six weeks ago.
HF
Independent news media, both print and broadcast
First of all, broadcast media are government regulated and government licensed. If ever the FCC or anything like it regulates print the way the FCC regulates broadcast, know that the Republic is no more. "Independent broadcast news media" is an oxymoron.5 posted on 05/03/2003 6:37 AM EDT by conservatism_IS_compassion"Both print and broadcast" notably excludes this medium, the Internet. The fundamental difference between print and the Internet is that whereas print evolved away from mere speech and became the prototype of broadcast, the cost of publishing on the Internet is very widely affordable. The Internet now is what print was when the First Amendment was framed and ratified--the most economical means of getting access to the widest expression of opinion.
IOW, the First Amendment should apply to the internet if it applies to any technology at all other than print "the press" and in-person verbal communication "speech". And government-created, government regulated broadcasting is--to the very considerable extent that it competes with print and Internet communication--extraconstitutional.
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1. Censorship, direct or indirect, is unacceptable; thus laws and practices restricting the right of the news media freely to gather and distribute information must be abolished, and government authorities, national or local, must not interfere with the content of print or broadcast news or restrict access to any news source.
If a government is sensitive to the slightest charge of censorship it will be criticized mercilessly for the slightest putative lapse. However if actual courage is required to criticize a government, as in the case of CNN and Saddam Hussain, no criticism at all will be forthcoming. Precisely because the abuses of this "principle" are so egregious. So much for "must not."6 posted on 05/03/2003 6:48 AM EDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
. . . and liberalism/"political correctness" is the safe refuge of the mediocre. Reporters aren't going to savage a fellow mediocrity for mouthing liberal platitudes, whereas they will savage a conservative for not doing so. To be an outspoken conservative is thus to have courage (and, quite often, actual intelligence). To be an outspoken conservative is to risk being portrayed by your inferiors who buy ink by the barrel as "dumb." Even as such men of energy and accomplishment as GWB and Ronald Reagan have been.Thus, clinton mediocrity goes undetected primarily because of media mediocrity. ("Mediocrity" and "media" don't come from the same Latin root (medius) for no reason.) Insofar as the clintons are concerned, the media confuse form with substance, smoothness with coherence, data-spewing with ratiocination, pre-programmed recitation with real-time analysis, an idiosyncratic degeneracy with creativity.
Journalists are not experts at much but being celebrities--knowing how to herd together with other journalists and avoid flame wars with others who buy ink by the barrel. Knowing, that is, how to protect their own image, to remain celebrities. They are difficult to understand primarily because it's hard to accept that such prominent people are actually as shallow as they seem.sourceThe miracles of modern PR . . .
The First Amendment stricture,". . . no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . ."means that the government forbidden to require a standard of reliabiliy on books, magazines, or newspapers. The writers are not under oath, and are not subject to penalties for perjury.That is essential for freedom of thought and opinion to flourish. It does now occur to me, however, that there could be an analog to the "super marriage" concept being tried in, I believe, Louisiana. That concept being, that the "super marriage" vows are more binding, more respected by the state and divorce more difficult than in "regular" marriage.
The incentive to enter a "super marriage" is, simply, that refusal to enter into it is much like insisting on a prenuptial agreement--it implies a limitation of trust which both partners should have in each other before marriage in any event.
Perhaps there should be a "super journalism" entered into voluntarily by a news organization, and by its reporters individually as a condition of employment. That "super jouralism" would subject its practitioners to the penalties of perjury for knowingly false publication, including the insinuation that you know something when you do not in fact know it. The incentive to enter "super journalism" would be, simply, that refusal to do so would be denial of your proud boasts of "journalistic ethics"--a refusal to put your money where your mouth is.
Theoretically, FCC-licensed broadcasters already are subject to that sort of standard; the FCC certifies by law that the licensees are "broadcasting in the public interest as a public trustee"--and is charged with enforcing a prohibition on the transmission of false signals. We saw in the aftermath of the "Gore Wins Florida" announcement, tho, how seriously that law is taken. The discussion on Wednesday morning was not about the error broadcast Tuesday night at 7:50, but about the blood relation between GWB and the analyst who first correctly called "Bush wins Florida."
So my "super journalism" proposal is unserious, meant to dramatize the contrast between the claims of journalistic "objectivity" and the reality of journalistic cowardice/herd mentality . . . to illustrate Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate.
The First Amendment is essential to the protection of our right to freedom of thought and opinion. But it also precludes the government from taking action against error or, usually, even deception. Consequently trusting journalism as truth has to be strictly a "caveat emptor" situation.Journalists know that they have to be skeptical in order to avoid being gulled by people with axes to grind. But the poor dears are hurt--deeply offended--at the thought that we-the-people have the common sense to apply similar standards toward them.
Their only defense must be a posture of offended innocence, for they are selling exactly what they boast that they would not buy--trust in somebody else's word. "You can take our word, because we wouldn't take yours" is their actual message--and not exactly a reassuring one!
That journalism is or should be "unbiased".In fact of course,That journalism dominates public opinion.
And that public opinion should be soverign all the time.
The First Amendment tells the government NOT to attempt to enforce "unbiased" thought, speech, or printing.The public knows or certainly should know that believing journalism is strictly a "caveat emptor" proposition.
And this is a republic in which the public is soverign only on Election Day.
And in order to exercise that soverignty on Election Day, public opinion should be isolated from attempts at coercion (i.e., should be exercised in a secret ballot) or attempts at undue influence via polling-place electioneering or via any form of Election-Day PR efforts. Especially broadcast journalism, and most especially broadcast predictions of election outcomes before the polls close.
The central issue of the "Hanoi Jane" phenomenon is coverage of the contemptible antics of celebrities by big journalism. Followed immediately by the gullibility of the public in being influenced by big journalism.The First Amendment is essential for the protection of freedom of thought, opinion, and discussion. The core principle of the First Amendment is freedom of opinion transmission from the individual to whoever takes interest in it. The Internet in general and FR in particular are implementations of that essential principle.
Big journalism, OTOH, is the implementation of the contrary principle of centralized control of transmission of opinion to the individual. Big journalism began to develop in earnest with the high speed press in the 1830s. It found its (hopefully) lowest expression in the big 3 broadcast networks, enabled by Federal Communications Commission censorship and the "Fairnes Doctrine".
The enabling of talk radio with the elimination of the "Fairness Doctrine," and advent of cable and internet, has had a significant salutory decentralizing effect. And the embarassments of big media outlets such as the NY Times and CNN are encouraging.
But the FCC--the sine qua non of centralized radio transmission (broadcasting) and an abject Constitutional embarrasment--is still sacrosanct. And passage of McCain-Feingold proves that the conceit of "objectivity" is still virulent in America. Like the Fairness Doctrine of old, McCain-Feingold ratifies the essential tenent of Public Relations, legal presumption of of "journalistic objectivity."
Given that half the truth can be a very big lie, and that no one can know all the truth--let alone publish it--objectivity is inherently unprovable. Indeed it is part of the genius of the First Amendment that its plain intent is to keep the government out of the quagmire of arguing over "fairness."
The ridiculous premise of "journalistic objectivity" is transparent cover for cowardly go-along-to-get-along journalistic concensus formed in full public view at the expense of any independent perspectives. At the expense, not infrequently, of perspectives which subsequent events validate.
lucid description of freedom of speech/press
Those who talk a lot should, accordingly, feature humility in their normal pattern of speech. Humility, in particular, about being "in the mainstream", or "moderate", or whatever. The trouble is that the technology of print and broadcast enables people who talk a lot to coalesce around common principles for profit and fun. The common principles we see being thus promoted are those which have emotional appeal. Part of emotional appeal is flattery of the listener that, for example, all she needs to know to understand society (in all its complexity) conveniently fits her convenience and her prejudices.
Journalism's conceit of its own objectivity stands as naked hubris. The inability of all too many Americans to see through that is inevitable, I suppose--but it is also a central problem of a polity having democratic principles.
That problem is reflected in the influence which results in journalists being treated as, in effect, an extraconstitutional nobility. Laws and judicial decisions such as McCain Feingold and the "principle" of journalists' protection of sources (a topical issue again, according to WABC's Monica Crowley, in the revelation that the Peterson murder case investigation entailed wiretapping which captured the suspect's conversations with journalists).
The First Amendment is right. And it is right because it does not enshrine objectivity, or any such absurd notion, but simply assigns judgement to the reader/listener alone, in a full caveat emptor context. It rightly protects your right to your own opinion, and me to mine, equally. Whether or not you happen to own The New York Times.
You are not "entitled to the truth," you are only entitled to your own opinion--and to express that opinion not only with your voice but with whatever publicity medium you may happen to command.
The fundamental fallacy of all codes of journalism is quite simple: no one knows the whole truth, and no one tells everything they do know--and half the truth can be a very big lie.The conceit that journalists under deadline and competitive pressure can and do produce "the first draft of history"--rather than an image of their own human, limited vision--is hubris. Take that conceit out of a journalistic ethics code, and IMHO nothing much is left of value.
We are not entitled to the truth, for nobody is legally obligated to tell us the truth.
We are entitled to our own opinion, and to attend to whoever we decide to listen to and ignore the rest--and to publish our own opinions as we choose, subject to the limitations of our own purses but not subject to government licensing. That's why FreeRepublic.com should be constitutionally protected--but McCain-Feingold in particular, and the FCC in general, should be thrown out root and branch.
Codes of Ethics
This is just the public tip of the iceberg; recall that a lot of the time information damaging to the Clintons was leaked on the Clinton timetable--and anonymously--and the Clinton White House blamed the leaks on Ken Starr. The charges were investigated, and later discredited--but the Clinton system of always keeping one step ahead of the law was served. The journalists who published the leaks obviously had to know where they were coming from.This is a First Amendment jurisprudence scandal, in that the Constitution has been interpreted, illogically, as conferring a "protection of sources" immunity for "the press". And that illegitimate immunity allowed Blumenthal et al to smear Starr with the accusation that Starr was illegally leaking priveledged Grand Jury information. I'm sure you'll find The New York Times smack in the middle of that deception . . .
So much for your so-called "right to know" . . .
But the Constitution was framed for a society which didn't have radio, TV, or the Internet, and it worked without them. In fact, broadcast journalism's bland assurance that we have "a right to know what's going on"--and are able to have our representatives know what we want (not only by our letters but through the magic of polling)--that is the sole support for the ridiculous conceit that "Character doesn't matter" which was so useful to x42.
In fact of course we don't know a lot of things which are going on, and we especially didn't know back in the nineties, when x42 had his minions spreading disinformation to the Democrats known as journalists. And journalists didn't tell us everything they knew that was important, either--they "protected the sources" of leaks from those x42 minions. Leaks which were nominally damaging to x42 but were timed for minimum effect on him. Leaks which were used to besmirch the reputation of Ken Starr--who was not allowed to reveal the information being leaked, but was accused of being the source by the actual source.
Obviously the journalists publishing the leaks knew who the source actually was, but they published the WH charges which they knew to be false without revealing that in fact they knew they were false. So much for your "right to know." And so much for the idea that "Character doesn't matter."
(various FR links)
It is the notion that the media is somehow supposed to be "fair" -- whatever that is -- that bothers me. Where is it carved into marble that the media is supposed to be "fair" and neutral? The very first major newspapers in this country were founded by Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson to advance their policies. And yes, early on, The New York Times was published by a man who at the same time was Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Yeah. That history makes those early papers look like prototypes of political parties, doesn't it!You will probably enjoy this thread on the First Amendment.
C T, I've pasted your excellent thesis here in this thread, where I have been cataloging similar points for some time. You might be interested in the whole thread.Early in our history as a nation, newspapers were very biased. Here in my home town of about 25,000 people, there were two newspapers with reasonable circulations. That was the typical situation in much of the United States. One paper was pro Democrat and the other was pro Republican. From the 1860s to the 1930s the two papers were very biased... openly and honestly so. Then they merged. But in the biased days both papers were like talk radio in that every effort was made to disclose the bias. The Democrat paper was proudly a Democrat paper and so was the Republican paper. Everyone knew where both papers stood on the issues of the day. They were biased but there was no attempt to deceive.
Each paper made the case for its party. When I was a young man just starting in radio, I went to the local library and read some of the issues of both papers. I read editions published before the turn of the 20th century. There was no pretense of objectivity in either. There was no lying to the public about what was in the papers. They presented their parties side. By reading both papers and doing your own analysis, one could get a very good idea of what was really going on at every level from local to national. Then with the advent of Radio and the changed economics of newspapers, the two merged. TV increased the rate of newspaper mergers all over the USA. Locally the surviving paper, as survivors did everywhere,s aid it was NOW going to be unbiased. But over the years it has become biased for the Democrat side, but it still claims to be unbiased. It was was for most of its history locally owned. Now it is part of a major chain. I no longer subscribe to it or read it. The circulation is getting lower as younger people do not subscribe.
Most of the survivor papers started down the slippery road to bias on the editorial page. The editorial page was said to be opinion. The papers openly claimed that they did not have to meet the standards of truth and fact on the Editorial page. They were fair because they had both left and right columnists. The editorial page was what was left of the individual papers. It had columnist supporting both parties in equal numbers. But over the years the columnists became almost exclusively leftist.
The original set up for the rest of the so called unbiased paper were NON bylined stories on all pages except the editorial page. It was understood that a story with out a byline did not contain anything except facts. On the other hand bylined stories (there were very few) were understood to be mostly factual but contained some of the opinions or analysis attributed to the reporter whose name was attached to the article. Over time bylined stories were used for all except wire stories. Newspapers began ti mix analysis and opinions in the main news content. A reader could no longer determine what was fact and what was fiction.. And non bylined stories from the wire became opinion pieces too. Opinion pieces is a cute name for news stories that contain statements that can not be proved to be true... That is, they contain lies.
The end result has been the change in newspaper reporting from fair and balanced reporting to unfair and unbalanced bylined reporting on all pages. And on OpEd pages the outright distortions and lies of a Maureen Dowd and many others are supported and promoted. The prime difference non in 2003 as opposed to 1983, is the side lied about and biased against has a way to fight back. There is the internet. Where the response to the lies and distortions of the leftist papers and broadcasters can be distributed. Talk radio is an other avenue to present the other side. Not much has changed in the print media except the media's ability to lie and get away with it no longer exists. It is a major shock to them.
The Fox News Channel on TV has changed broadcasting forever. They openly report the lies and bias of other papers and broadcasters. They are drawing a larger and larger audience every day. There was a time when the "paper of record" could lie on every page and there was no recourse. Then others in the press could quote those lies as truth and there was no recourse. Eventually the lies became to be known as the truth. There was a time when a former GM employee and an Eisenhower administration offical said, "What is good for the USA is good for General Motors" and have it distorted into "What is good for General Motors is good for America". There was nothing he could do. Not a single part of the media would point out the obvious change in meaning the reveral made.
That can't happen today. It is a major shock to the media. Today with Fox, talk radio and the internet there is recourse. What the so called "mainstream media" is doing today makes their problem worse. They say that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. The mainstream media lives in a glass house and they are throwing stones. They are quite surprised by the result. For the first time in their experience ordinary people have stones too. For the first time in 70 years the situation is self correcting.
The Times may not be a changin'...but the Times is dying a slow and painful death. The owner of the Times thinks he is writing a new chapter for his power structure...but his new chapter will turn out to be the Times's obituary.
50 posted on 05/30/2003 7:16 AM EDT by Common Tator
79 posted on 05/30/2003 3:21 PM EDT by Common Tator
Having copied your #50 here, I find that you followed it with #54, #73, #76, and #79 . . . and that responses to them were also interesting.Respectfully suggest that you initiate a stand-alone thread on the topic(s) you have discussed--and when you do, be kind enough to flag me.
On a substantive note, you point out that radio stations don't have to broadcast news--but that stations tend to lose ratings if they don't at least have a 3-minute top-of-the-hour news program (for a music-format station) and 5 minutes, for talk format. I treat the news almost as a commercial. Strong tendency to turn off the radio for 6 minutes at the top of the hour.
But then, I guess I'm pretty unusual in that respect--and there WAS a time when I regularly listened to news-radio! Obviously THAT was before I started formulating the analysis which animates this thread . . .
Broadcasting polical information on election day should be verboten. Consider the way the Soviet radio stations all used to switch to classical music when their dictator died. As long as the identity of the new dictator was not yet known, broadcasting politics could make enemies, possibly VERY powerful ones. We obviously have a system without that sort of fear element, but the principle is the same. The broadcast journalism of election day 2000 was a patent case of undue influence, and the broadcasting of exit poll results before the last polls are closed nationwide should lose you your FCC license. Just as I'm not allowed to talk politics in the polling place on election day . . .
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