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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

Interesting essay.
I suppose that truly free speech has no obligation to be true or objective. It is the moral and ethical purists who see journalists as reporters of truth and accurate information. Libel laws keep the media somewhat in bounds.
My fundamental point is that First Amendment journalism inherently tends toward superficiality, negativity, arrogance, and cowardice:

deadlines make journalism superficial, not only by forcing the journalist to finish under time pressure but by requiring the journalist to start writing under time pressure. Which means that the article may be about fluff in the first place.

negativity is natural to people; it takes work to put things in perspective instead of merely complaining.

as long as there is no true competition in ideas on the front pages of newspapers, newspapers can all claim the false "objectivity" of concensus with each other. The claim of objectivity, like the claim of any virtue, is arrogance.

but since that power position of being able to talk down to the rest of us depends on concensus, each individual journalist is intimidated by the collective. Therefore you need not expect courage from a journalist - only the claim of courage.

However, the public looks to the media for truth and depends on them to be honest and accurate. Pushing a particular political or moral philosophy is accepted as long as both sides are presented and so long as what is presented is accurate.
Unfortunately, being honest takes courage, and that is not common among journalists. In fact, if you are actually courageous you will be read out of journalism as "not objective." I mean by that, for example, that everyone in journalism must have known the reality that CNN could not have a Baghdad bureau without kowtowing to Saddam Hussain. A true, accurate, honest assessment would have told the public that CNN was flacking for a tyrant, as CNN's Eason Jordan ultimately admitted The News We (CNN) Kept To Ourselves [must read] after our coalition deposed said tyrant.
Yet no other journalism blew the whistle on CNN. Why? Either because they were all too stupid to know it - even though they know why they didn't have Baghdad bureaus - or they knew a significant derrogatory truth about CNN and withheld it from the public out of fear of the repercussions of criticizing someone else who "buys ink by the carload."
When that fails the public starts looking for alternatives. That is what gave birth to the internet and talk radio as popular purveyors of information.

News as entertainment? I disagree that that is the driving force for audiences. Complete truth and accuracy are what drive audiences for news.
Don't misunderstand when I call news "entertainment." I do not mean that the reader of the front page of the newspaper thinks he's reading the funnies; indeed, the reader of the front page thinks he is performing a civic duty by informing himself as a voter.
But what the reader thinks he is doing and what he is actually doing are two different things; the superficiality and negativity of journalism are there not to inform but to attract attention. What the reader is actually doing is satisfying (more or less idle) curiosity - and flattering himself that he is doing more than that.
That is why I say the MSM is moving ever so slightly toward a more balanced approach. They are losing their reason d'etre, money.

23 posted on 08/17/2005 11:10:37 PM EDT by Mind-numbed Robot (Not all that needs to be done needs to be done by the government.)

I like your tagline; my analysis of it is that leftists so habitually employ "society" or "public" as a euphemism for "government" that they are all like my uncle, and cannot tell you the difference in the meanings of the words. Thus the leftist will say, "society should" (e.g., provide vaccine for the children), and mean nothing other than that the governement should do it.
What is the difference between "society" and "government?" Nothing. Nothing but freedom, that is . . .
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1465165/posts?page=23#23

Media bias bump.

but since that power position of being able to talk down to the rest of us depends on concensus, each individual journalist is intimidated by the collective. Therefore you need not expect courage from a journalist - only the claim of courage.

This may be the crux of the difference in our opinions. The power position ultimately depends on us, the audience, not the interplay among the media and their interchangable parts.

I think the word "interest" better describes what you are saying than "entertainment" although the media themselves say that entertainment is the driving force for audience. They are wrong about the news department.

You make many interesting observations and you obviously generated a thread of interest to a lot of people. Keep it up.