Posted on 09/21/2008 1:06:09 AM PDT by Puzzleman
I am sick of no action taken against the media who are clearly nothing more than mouthpieces of the Obama campaign and the DNC. Every McCain spokesman or Republican needs to call them out on it EVERY appearance they make and cite these blatant examples of questions and hit pieces they do against McCain-Palin vs. their treatment of Obama and Biden. Never let up. They need to be brought to account for this criminal behavior in which they are abusing the first amendment. This is not at all what the founders had in mind and the press has crossed the line in being blatantly dishonest with their lies and propaganda for the Demonrats. And the only way they will be held to account is when they are CONTINUALLY called on it no matter what the conservative/GOP guests are there for an interview-make it THE issue. This charade cannot continue because these people are engaged in a form of tyranny. It needs to be confronted because they have crossed the line. Republicans/conservatives have nothing to lose and the media needs to be put in their place. I think a boycott is in order at some point as well.
I agree with your sentiments but not with your conclusions. It took me a great many years to dope things out more clearly than that.So far as newspapers go, the First Amendment created a free-fire zone for politics. Jefferson sponsored a newspaper to attack Hamilton and his politics, and Hamilton did likewise. And that was within the pale of the intent of the First Amendment; the founders were still in power in the federal government at the time.
But you can scarcely fault the framers for being unable to foresee the impact of technology; they just knew that they could have overlooked some things and they therefore included an amendments clause in the Constitution. At the time of the passage of the First Amendment, newspapers (as they were already called) were not journalism as we now know it.
Consequently, the beef against modern newspapers is not that they are political, the beef is with the sheeple who take the bait and believe that journalism is, or even might be, objective. The Associated Press formed journalism as we know it - and one of its central tenents is the objectivity of journalism.
- lacking the telegraph, all newspapers were relatively parochial since they had no source of access to distant events outside of the ken of the general public.
- lacking sources to which the public could not be privy, "newspapers" didn't generally go to press daily; most were weeklies and some didn't even have a fixed deadline but went to press whenever the printer thought he was good and ready.
- In the absence of news which the general public couldn't already know, the printer's opinion was the basis of the voice of the newspaper. Not too different from "The Limbaugh Letter."
The AP rationalized its claim to objectivity by pointing out that its member newspapers were famous for not agreeing on anything. But objective journalism is impossible because the rules which make modern journalism commercially viable are not objective. It only takes a political party which aligns itself perfectly with the political implications of journalism to convert Associated Press jounalism into perfectly tendentious partisanship.
And during the late 1960s and early 1970s the Democratic Party became exactly that.
This, and more, discussed here
BTTT
...But I can also understand BushFamFan's frustrations with the MSM; they simply CANNOT BE TRUSTED. PERIOD.
The MSM's slant towards Obama and bias against McCain (specifically his running mate Sarah Palin) is so blatantly obvious that you'd have to be a completely lobotomized Obama supporter not to see this, and unfortunately there are many who fall into that category.
An example of this comes from a conversation I had yesterday after Sunday School with a fellow McCain supporter, who noticed most Obama supporters she has chatted with about the election are redefining what he has said on any given issue, notably that of abortion.
It's almost like we're back in 1998 again, with Clinton's 'The definition of what Is is' testimony during his perjury trial.
the MSM . . . simply CANNOT BE TRUSTED. PERIOD.
No, they cannot. Or, they can be trusted perfectly to project their own interest as if it were the public interest.
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