HAS THE MEDIA GONE TOO FAR?

boblonsberry.com ^ | 09/16/08 | Bob Lonsberry

[Wil H]

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the Republican and Democratic national conventions. At each, reporters outnumbered delegates and officials more than 3-to-1. The vast majority of these media people were doing nothing but regurgitating what others had said, over and over and over. In almost every situation, the priorities and topics of the reporters were very different from those of the delegates. For all the news media, for all the coverage, all you got by watching TV at night was the opinions of the anchors and reporters, you don't learn a thing, truly, about the convention or the delegates.

Excellent Observation!

[Wil H]

Nice rant, but at least half or more of the US population don’t watch or listen to news.

"Be thankful for small mercies"..

[refermech]

Unfortunately I think viewers will gravitate towards those news outlets that more accurately reflect or reinforce their own world views. IE conservatives watch FOX and libs watch everything else. I think it is impossible to eliminate bias. After all we are dealing with humans and we are very flawed. The internet may provide the answer but is just as likely to enflame each side passions with uncorroberated and baseless attacks.

[refermech]

I know, Spellcheck is my friend! Doh!!

[Genoa]

“The more bleak it appears for Obama, the more they will stretch. Just like Dan Rather in ‘04, someone will get so carried away, it will cost them their career. Who will it be?”

In my house, that has already happened, and his name is Charlie Gibson. Has Charlie admitted his inexcusable mangling of his “exacts words” of Gov. Palin’s prayer request? There we have incompetent and arrogant all rolled into one.

[Lucky Dog]

Unfortunately I think viewers will gravitate towards those news outlets that more accurately reflect or reinforce their own world views.

Ultimately, it still comes down to economics. The news outlet that best delivers audience for advertisers becomes the most successful. News consumers drawn only by their own biases to news sources reflecting similar biases will work only so long as the consumers maintain those biases.

Reality has a nasty way of eventually intruding upon biases that are not grounded in fact. However, if they are grounded in fact, they really aren't biases, are they?

However, the above analysis is predicated upon a "free marketplace of ideas." The minute such ceases to exist, so does the ability of "reality" to correct bias. Therefore, maintaining "freedom of the press" and economic freedom is essential.

[refermech]

Yes, facts are stubborn things. I hope you are correct. Past history is not encouraging though. Even though we can vote with our wallets, I would say the press has become more biased in the last 20 or so years. The mechanisms for correction are there, but the public isn’t doing their part.(they are being fed bad information by the press!)

[MrChips]

Sarah Palin: “It’s cloudy outside.”

Keith Olbermann: “No, it’s only partly cloudy! IT’S ONLY PARTLY CLOUDY!!! (shouting at camera). SHE’S A LIAR!!!

[Lucky Dog]

The real, long term answer for the "biased press" issue lies outside of the press all together. The long term answer is rooted in an" educated" citizenry.

The current, public, education system turns out more than a few "indoctrinated" citizens, but precious few, truly "educated" ones. Truly "educated" citizens think critically and know how to properly use logic.

Such "educated" citizens understand that mere presentation of information does not necessarily equate to presentation of "truth" or reality. These "educated" citizens know enough of human nature to examine the motives of those who would "present" to them and to view the information thus presented in light of those motives as well as to critically examine and verify the presented information.

Until we can get our mass education system to routinely produce such "educated" citizens, we will have to continually confront the problem of bias in the press as well as other places such as entertainment and art.

[zeugma]

If you have ever been involved in a story that made the paper or the evening news, you know darn well that very little of what made print or got aired was factual and correct. But they get away with it because a relatively few people were involved in the story compared to the number that consumes the story.

Absolutely.  Personal experience is a great teacher.

The most effective weapon we have against the media is how consistantly wrong they are about everything they report. Even on subjects where there is no partisan spin involved, they will always get the story wrong in most important respects.

One thing I've found to be pretty consistantly true among most people I meet is that everyone has some subject that interests them that they know quite a bit about. They may well ride the short bus where everything else in the universe is concerned, but everyone has some one thing that they consider their own.

I'll ask them to consider any report of substance they might have seen somewhere in the media about that particular thing. Then I'll ask them questions about how accurately it was reported. The almost universal response is that the press got it wrong every single time.

My response to which, is that if they screwed the pooch so badly about this one subject, how can you trust them on anything else they report?

This can be particularly effective to get people to start questioning what they see/hear.

[refermech]

Unfortunately the so called “educators” are the very people that distort or omit the facts to promote their own agendas. It's a vicious cycle and I hate what the politicians have to do to win elections. It's almost a farce.

[redpoll]

>>>Ideally, the news business is nothing more than a pipe. Its job is to gather and transmit information. Like the water pipe that leads from the main to your kitchen sink. You turn on the tap and you should get, unadulterated, cool, clear water. You don’t want to taste the pipe. You just want water.<<<

That’s the ideal. The problem is that we’re human beings, not pipes. We all come to the table with biases and preconceptions.

Information is more like a buffet table. We get all sorts of flavors and tastes. What we don’t want is contaminated food, diseased food, or pollutants. Otherwise, I may not enjoy the dull flavor of doctrinaire liberalism, but I shouldn’t demand that the food be banned.

[Lucky Dog]

Unfortunately the so called “educators” are the very people that distort or omit the facts to promote their own agendas.

Your assertion is definitely true at the college level. (Remember Ward Churchill?) However, I think that at the lower levels of education, the blame does not belong directly with the “educators” unless you count failure to resist “political correctness.” Rather it is more the fault of the “administrators,” unions and lawyers.

The single, most effective steps toward correcting the situation IMHO would be tort reform and disbanding of the NEA and AFT. The next most effective reforms would be return of effective control of school systems entirely to the local school board (including text book selection) and abolition of “tenure” below the college level.

The final step would be “merit pay” for teachers. A test over grade appropriate material (for each grade) is administered at the beginning of the year with the exact same test (randomized order) re-administered at the end of the year. The teacher’s “merit pay” would be based upon the average increase in the amount the students learned (how much better the average test scores were from the beginning of the year). Just like the SAT and ACT, the tests would be the same for everyone and given to the same group that started the year. Since the compensation would be for a net change in performance, it can be assumed that the change is the result of the teacher’s efforts. Even if the students did poorly on the first and second tests, but still better on the second test than the first test, the teacher obviously did his or her job.

… I hate what the politicians have to do to win elections. It's almost a farce.

Ever heard the phrase “bread and circus?” It comes from the time of the Roman Republic and refers to what politicians of that day did for votes. I am afraid that neither political corruption nor election shenanigans originated with our republic. Unfortunately, all we can do is work for reform and pray for our nation’s welfare and repentance.