It seems Freedom of Speech is always to be considered a right and then the Freedom of the Press. But, shouldn’t we have right to be told the truth by the press? Does this not have a precedent?
It seems I did learn much the past week from the Beslan Terrorist Reports, a quote from there follows,
“Pravda" is Russian for "Truth", "Isvestia" is Russian for "News".
The Soviet-era Russians had a saying, "In Pravda there is no News and in Izvestia there is no Truth".
In Truth there is no News and in News there is no Truth”
If we only heard the truth, instead of the spin………………………………..
At least the reporter for Knight-Ridder Newspapers,Seth Borenstein, apologized and admitted his error. He even asked for forgiveness. Pretty classy. But AP news service rejects any need to apologize for their intential smear. Very interesting.
OK. Tell me how this works, someone. What is the AP? Where does its payroll come from? On whom can we put economic pressure?
Who's its competition? Reuters (also rotten)? UPI (still respectable, last I heard) ? Anyone else? Can we scare some already-on-the-ropes newspapers by promising to cancel subscriptions if they don't find an alternative wire service?
What about someone's suggestion yesterday that the WI Republican Party &/or the people at the rally sue AP for libel? Is that a possibiity?
We can not let this die. The AP is the most important news-disseminating organ in the country & it has stopped desseminating the news & started manufacturing its own. It has to be stopped.
What is the most effective action we can take?
Freedom of speech and of the press is incompatible with a requirement that we be told the truth.It is strictly a "caveat emptor" situation.
In fact if someone tells you that he is objective you may be quite certain that he is a self-righteous fraud. The honest person will tell you why you should suspect that he might not be objective.
Of course, the FCC license is predicated on the conceit that the licensees will broadcast in the public interest - but that has in practice meant only that broadcast journalists herd along with the print journalists. And in practice the print journalists herd together to avoid flame wars which would be "bad PR."