Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate

Conservatism IS Compassion ^ | Sept 14, 2001 | Conservatism_IS_Compassion

[television is just wrong]

journalism is a 'finished' entertainment package. These people have a license to make or destroy whomever they choose. They made Dan Quayle out to be a imbecile. They made John Edwards out to be a saint, to a lot of dems. They evey try to repackage John 'flip flop' Kerry almost succeeded.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Interesting comparison of John "Breck Girl" Edwards and Dan ("you're no John Kennedy") Quayle.

Of course you are right that the journalism savaged Quayle, and promoted Edwards.

[television is just wrong]

compared, because of trying to run for VP first time, new in a way to political forum. Just came to my mind thought, and decided to put it out there.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Journalism promotes the idea that it is "the press" - and therefore journalism is objective and defines the public interest. But although newspapers are part of the press, that does not justify the absurd conclusion journalism promotes. Journalism would attack with vociferous abandon any member of any other interest who made such an absurd claim. See, for example, the uproar over GM chairman Charles Wilson's 1953 statement that "What's good for the country is good for General Motors."

Over the course of the 20th century, life expectancy increased by 30 years; annual deaths from major killer diseases such as tuberculosis, polio, typhoid, whooping cough and pneumonia fell from 700 to fewer than 50 per 100,000 of the population; agricultural workers fell from 41 to 2.5 percent of the workforce; household auto ownership rose from one to 91 percent; household electrification rose from 8 to 99 percent; controlling for inflation, household assets rose from $6 trillion to $41 trillion between 1945 and 1998. These are but a few of the wonderful things that have occurred during the 20th century.

All of which, and more, illustrates the point that an American secretary today would be ill-served to trade circumstances with the life of the fabulously wealthy Queen Victoria (1819-1901). And yet which generated more headlines in the 20^th Century - the unprecedented blessings of the 20^th Century, or World War II? Mass-market journalism is the business of profiting from bad news.

As compared to General Motors - which merely profits by manufacturing "a wonderful invention - it gets you where you are going, and keep you warm, dry, and broke" - journalism profits from the four horsemen of conquest, war, want, and death. And, in more than one instance, lies or hypertendentious partial truths.

The First Amendment does not give rights to ABC News - nor even to The New York Times. The First Amendment codifies some of the rights of the people - including, but not limited to, the Sulzbergers who control the Times. Journalism is more of a special interest than General Motors ever was.

Caring vs. uncaring
TownHall ^ | May 10, 2006 | Walter E. Williams

[JasonC]

The objection is to federal licensing and regulation of users of airwaves. I don't think it is particularly well formulated, but the notion that we simply have a free market in the matter is wide of the mark, empirically. You can't set up your own radio station and say what you please.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Since liberals operate under the premise that nothing matters except PR, whatever makes a good story for journalism is what liberals will promote. Consequently journalism runs the Democratic Party.

"I understand the reporters have a job to do," the president said. "I talk to them every day. I don't like what they write, but they don't like what I say," he added, half jokingly.

The problem, simply stated, is that journalists presume to be in charge of the government, and they go into high dudgeon whenever Republican officials defend the upwardly aspiring, downwardly fearing middle class.

Republicans exist to defend the conservative practical class against the attacks of the liberal criticizing class lead by journalism.

Come Again?
The Washington Post ^ | 5/15/2006 | Howard Kurtz

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

IMO, "reporters" of national prominence and caliber would very well know that there are holes in their explanations, yet they fail to mention them (so much for the "objective" media).

It is natural to claim objectivity if you can get away with it. Conservatives would do so if they dominated journalism. But to claim objectivity is to undercut you own argument, since if your argument depend on the assumption of your objectivity - and your objectivity cannot be proven - your argument is rotten at its core.

And your objectivity - or journalism's - can never be proven because nobody can state the whole truth. And half the truth can be a very big lie. Thus it is impossible to prove objectivity. Journalism's "objectivity" is especially difficult to prove because of the rules which make journalism commercially successful:

• "Man Bites Dog" rather than "Dog Bites Man" makes journalism unrepresentative.

• If it bleeeds it leads (and the unspoken, if it's good, it will appear in an ad or not at all) makes journalism negative.

• There's nothing more worthless than yesterday's newspaper makes journalism superficial.

Journalism promotes the bad news from Iraq because it sells newspapers. Far from making the bad news from Iraq representative and unbiased, that fact makes journalism tendentious in a predictably anticonservative way.

The interests of journalism define liberalism, because liberal politicians act on the belief that NOTHING actually matters except PR. It is scarcely to be marveled at that a political philosophy based on superficiality, negativity, and unrepresentativeness cannot stand up to polonged and focused logical critique.

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

[RightWhale]

The money in the business of journalism is in entertainment, not truth.

Some say the business is in subscriptions and some say it is in advertising. For broadcast journalism, since there are no subscriptions but patrons, it is an art.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Secretly, like all socialists, they hate normal people because normal people value genuine accomplishment rather than self-absorbed navel-gazing.

If you just stop and think about it, why would you not assume that journalists would be arrogant until proved otherwise? And why would you not assume that politicians pander to journalists to get PR, until proved otherwise? IMHO accepting the truth of those two questions is the beginning of political understanding.

If anyone dares to insinuate that they or their company, industry, or institution should be associated with the public interest, journalism will disabuse them of that notion in a hurry. Journalism - which calls itself "the press" for no other purpose - reserves that role to itself.

Journalism declares itself to be objective. Yet if challenged on the issue of the the negativity of its coverage (of Iraq, for example) journalism replies that "that's the nature of the news. Bad news sells." And of course that is true, bad news does sell. So bad news helps make journalism profitable - and there could scarcely be a better definition of a special interest than that.

"Arrogant" doesn't cover it. Proclaiming yourself the embodiment of the public interest when in fact you are the quintessential special interest is chutzpah to the max.

Ex-'Inky' Editor: New Ownership Of Philly Papers Could Be 'Dangerous'
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002541091 ^ | May 23, 2006 | Joe Strupp

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Some say the business is in subscriptions and some say it is in advertising. For broadcast journalism, since there are no subscriptions but patrons, it is an art.

On face value, broadcast journalism is paid for by commercials - but in a very real sense you are correct. The patrons of broadcast journalism are those who promote the fatuous conceit that broadcast journalism is valuable to constitutional governance. It is not.

Our laws are made by elected officials who do not need the counsel of the likes of Dan Rather and Mary Mapes on what will get them reelected. Our officials are elected by an electorate which does not need to get marching orders from journalists on a less-than-24-hour deadline since they cast their ballots on the performance of the incumbents over a period of years.

People who promote the idea that broadcast journalism is in the public interest, when in fact it is a special interest, are the "patrons" of whom you speak.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The objection is to federal licensing and regulation of users of airwaves. I don't think it is particularly well formulated, but the notion that we simply have a free market in the matter is wide of the mark, empirically. You can't set up your own radio station and say what you please.

Ping to MarkWar's interesting #19 ("TO 19" button below).

[Lurking Libertarian]

Yet we-the-people allow the government--in the form of the FCC--to tell us which of our countrymen speak over the government-created airwaves "in the public interest." If the First Amendment is truly properly understood to allow that, why is it also properly understood to forbid the government to make that same decision about newspapers or books? One or the other of those two understandings is deeply flawed. I say it is the former.

The SCOTUS ruled on this very issue about 35 years ago, in Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, upholding the constitutionality of FCC regulation of broadcast journalism.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

One might argue, as many have, that there is a national interest in promoting debate about defense and security policy and that such debate would be impeded by the prosecution of journalists.

OTOH one might argue, as I do, that journalists are not priests nor any sort of officials at all. Journalists are merely people like you and me, with no credentials which the government is obligated to respect. People who exercise rights that you and I have but ordinarily do not exercise. Say rather, which we ordinarily exercise only humbly via FR, rather than arrogantly.

Journalists call themselves "the press" as if non-fiction or even fictional books were less protected than the particular genre of topical nonfiction known as journalism. And as if the First Amendment covered broadcast journalists whose business could not exist without government censorship of radio transmission which competed with the licensed broadcasters. It is arrogant to argue from a claim of your own virtue, and journalists arrogantly claim the virtue of objectivity.

Journalists claim the status of a priesthood of power - the power of public relations. They maintain that power by maintaining their circulation and their ratings, and they maintain their circulation and ratings by "If it bleeds it leads" negativity and by second-guessing criticism of those who provide the goods and services upon which we depend.

• If we depend on the military, then the military must be losing in Iraq (even if its oppostition there holds no territory and is capable only of harassing the Iraqi public and our troops.

• If we trust the food in the supermarket, then Alar used to optimize the appearance of apples must be harmful to public health.

• If we depend on our pickup trucks, they must be firebombs just waiting to go off.

• If we depend on gasoline, the oil companies must be greedy.

• If we depend on white men, they must be racist sexist biggot homophobes.

• If we depend on the police, they must be either unable to apprehend evildoers or brutal thugs - if not both.

• If we depend on Christian principles (which alone explain why slavery was abolished worldwide to the extent that it has been), Christians must be self righteous and domineering.

• If we depend on FR and bloggers to give us informed opinion, bloggers and FR posters must be tendentious partisans who unfairly target virtuous journalists and liberal politicians.

• And if we depend on an intelligent and public-spirited electorate, the electorate must be a bunch of mind-numbed robots who will fall for anything.

In short, journalism preens itself as the definition of the public interest by promoting the idea that anyone who is not a journalist or a credulous believer of the perspective of journalism is evil. Journalism is in fact nothing but the prototypical special interest. An interest which promotes liberalism tyranny as it promotes itself.

Is the New York Times About to be Indicted?
Armavirumque ^ | May 25, 2006 | James Piereson

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[Military family member]

I acknowledge that many journalists are covered by your description, but I must object to the absolutes. ALL Journalists are not covered by this blanket. In fact, I would argue that most are not covered by this label.

The absolute then implies that:

All Republicans are ...

All Democrats are ...

All Whites are ...

All Catholics are ...

All Blacks are ...

All Americans are ...

Or even (if you object to the use of racial, religious or political labels).

All lawyers are ...

All teachers are ...

All doctors are ...

I claim no priesthood...I leave that to my pastor.

The biggest growth in the newspaper business in the last 10 years has been among the niche papers like mine, a business publication. We have grown 240% in the last two years. My growth is based almost entirely on the fact that do not behave in the manner you describe in the above post.

The IS a vital need for government to be open and accessible, if for no other reason than government spends our money, the taxpayers. Journalism has uncovered a tremendous amount of corruption, greed and malfeasance.

I too have my own crusades, but I watch local government, and to a lesser extent, state government. There are more of us than there are the major news channels and the major networks. Thousands of people are still getting much of their news from local sources, the daily paper, the weekly paper, the 6 p.m. news. But when the local government suddenly gets the $1 million fire truck before the appropriation goes through, then I believe it is my duty to call them on it.

This is not to suggest that we are all saints either. I screw up, although I loath to admit it. It does happen. I also try to offer corrections in the same spirit as the original article.

As for criticism, it swings both ways. I get as many positives and negatives usually. I have learned to listen to both, but ultimately the final judgment on the story is mine, because my name is on the story. What I cannot do is take the John Kerry approach and waffle with public opinion. I am not afraid to change my views because of new information or new arguments, but I am also not afraid to stand by my convictions.

[gogeo]

Your comments are true. The claim of impartial, unbiased truthtelling has as much weight as we give it. Is it really anything more than a marketing claim?

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Thomas Sowell

The poor are the very lifeblood of the left, attracting activists, support among the intelligentsia, and -- perhaps most important -- allowing the left to indulge in self-congratulation as people who "care." But, if they really cared, they would want to know what the facts are and what the actual consequences of their various nostrums are.

c_I_c:

As Rush has been pointing out, it is no joke that the Democrats are so desperate to have more poor people to boast of their "compassion" for that they are determined to import them from Mexico - or anywhere else - by the tens of millions.

Thomas Sowell

People who truly cared would want to know what the actual consequences of minimum wage laws are -- on which there is evidence from around the world that it creates unemployment. . . .

Most of the people in the bottom 20 percent are not full-time, year-around workers . . . There are, in fact, more heads of household who are full-time, year-around workers in the top 5 percent than in the bottom 20 percent.

. . But why risk a heady vision over mere facts?

c_I_c:

Liberals are motivated to nurture the idea of their own superiority much more than they are motivated by any actual desire to help people stop being poor. IOW, they cultivate their own "self-esteem" in the same way that they assay to cultivate the "self-esteem" of schoolkids. All show, no go.

People wonder why "the MSM" is populated exclusively with liberals; it is in fact obvious. Journalism makes its money by superficiality ("there's nothing more worthless than yesterday's newspaper") and negativity ("If it bleeds, it leads"). And that is a perfect description of the liberal. All show, no go.

The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.

Preserving a Vision: Part II (Thomas Sowell)
Townhall.com ^ | 5/31/06 | Thomas Sowell

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I consider you a FRiend. You take my critique of your profession seriously, which means that you have a certain level of humility, and less arrogance than too many of us have. Thank you for responding to my post. As Lincoln put it, "If a man's fight begins within himself, then he is worth something."

Although the temptations I describe exist at all levels of journalism, it is primarily the mass-market journalist that I have reference to in my critique. Mass marketing is impersonal, thinks of we-the-people as "the masses," and is therefore inherently arrogant.

You OTOH are in the trenches where you actually know real people that you are writing to, rather than working in a bubble where you only meet people who consider themselves insiders. You are in principle subject to competition from anyone who chooses to go in your business; no licenses and no huge capital plant required. When people rail against "the MSM," they are really talking about network broadcast journalism and the big mass-market newspapers with which broadcast journalists operate in symbiotic relationship.

It is a mutual admiration society of self-flatterers. IMHO. And I make no doubt that they are far outweighed in numbers, if not unfortunately in influence, by the grassroots type of journalism which you practice.

[Military family member]

I appreciate the comments. The broadcast network journalists build their careers on being noticed which in turn creates an environment that flair rules over substance. The more flash and flair your story attracts, the bigger the career move.

Newspapers also play that game, but to a much lesser extent. The number of positions in newspapers is shrinking. The First paper at which I worked had a staff of 25 reporters when I started. They now cover the same area with four

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

assume every dark rumor you've heard is true, that this was the murder of civilians by American service personnel. . . .

Anyone who supports the launching of a war should be clear-sighted enough to know that, when the troops go in, a few of them will kill civilians, bomb schools, torture prisoners. It happens in every war in human history, even the good ones.

. . . In the run-up to March 2003, there were respectable cases to be made for and against the Iraq war. Nothing that happened at Haditha alters either argument. . . . if you're one of the ever swelling numbers of molting hawks among the media, the political class and the American people for whom Haditha is the final straw, that's not a sign of your belated moral integrity but of your fundamental unseriousness.

Journalism promotes itself as the arbiter of what is important, but in practice journalism defines itself by the rules which make for profit for itself:

• If it bleeds, it leads.

• "Man Bites Dog," not "Dog Bites Man"

• Always make your deadline; there's nothing more worthless than yesterday's newspaper.

What could be more "fundmentally unserious" than that?

Mark Steyn: Events at Haditha don't change need for victory
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn04.html ^ | Mark Steyn