Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate

The framers of our Constitution gave carte blance protection to “speech” and “the press”. They did not grant that anyone was then in possession of complete and unalloyed truth, and it was impossible that they should be able to a priori institutionalize the truth of a future such human paragon even if she/he/it were to arrive.

At the time of the framing, the 1830s advent of mass marketing was in the distant future. Since that era, journalism has positioned itself as the embodiment of nonpartisan truth-telling, and used its enormous propaganda power to make the burden of proof of any “bias” essentially infinite. If somehow you nail them dead to rights in consistent tendentiousness, they will merely shrug and change the subject. And the press is protected by the First Amendment. That is where conservatives have always been stuck.

And make no mistake, conservatives are right to think that journalism is their opponent. Examples abound so that any conservative must scratch his/her head and ask “Why?” Why do those whose job it is to tell the truth tell it so tendentiously, and even lie? The answer is bound and gagged, and lying on your doorstep in plain sight. The money in the business of journalism is in entertainment, not truth. It is that imperative to entertain which produces the perspective of journalism.

And that journalism does indeed have a perspective is demonstrated every day in what it considers a good news story, and what is no news story at all. Part of that perspective is that news must be new--fresh today--as if the events of every new day were of equal importance with the events of all other days. So journalism is superficial. Journalism is negative as well, because the bad news is best suited to keep the audience from daring to ignore the news. Those two characteristics predominate in the perspective of journalism.

But how is that related to political bias? Since superficiality and negativity are anthema to conservatives there is inherent conflict between journalism and conservatism.. By contrast, and whatever pious intentions the journalist might have, political liberalism simply aligns itself with whatever journalism deems a “good story.” Journalists would have to work to create differences between journalism and liberalism, and simply lack any motive to do so. Indeed, the echo chamber of political “liberalism” aids the journalist--and since liberalism consistently exacerbates the issues it addresses, successful liberal politicians make plenty of bad news to report.

The First Amendment which protects the expression of opinion must also be understood to protect claims by people of infallibility--and to forbid claims of infallibility to be made by the government. What, after all, is the point of elections if the government is infallible? Clearly the free criticism of the government is at the heart of freedom of speech and press. Freedom, that is, of communication.

By formatting the bands and standardizing the bandwiths the government actually created broadcasting as we know it. The FCC regulates broadcasting--licensing a handful of priveledged people to broadcast at different frequency bands in particular locations. That is something not contemplated in the First Amendment, and which should never pass constitutional muster if applied to the literal press. Not only so, but the FCC requires application for renewal on the basis that a licensee broadcaster is “operating in the public interest as a public trustee.” That is a breathtaking departure from the First Amendment.

No one questions the political power of broadcasting; the broadcasters themselves obviously sell that viewpoint when they are taking money for political advertising. What does it mean, therefore, when the government (FCC) creates a political venue which transcends the literal press? And what does it mean when the government excludes you and me--and almost everyone else--from that venue in favor of a few priviledged licensees? And what does it mean when the government maintains the right to pull the license of anyone it does allow to participate in that venue? It means a government far outside its First Amendment limits. When it comes to broadcasting and the FCC, clearly the First Amendment has nothing to do with the case.

The problem of journalism’s control of the venue of argument would be ameliorated if we could get them into court. In front of SCOTUS they would not be permitted to use their mighty megaphones. And to get to court all it takes is the filing of a civil suit. A lawsuit must be filed against broadcast journalism, naming not only the broadcast licensees, but the FCC.

We saw the tendency of broadcast journalism in the past election, when the delay in calling any given State for Bush was out of all proportion to the delay in calling a state for Gore, the margin of victory being similar--and, most notoriously, the state of Florida was wrongly called for Gore in time to suppress legal voting in the Central Time Zone portion of the state, to the detriment of Bush and very nearly turning the election. That was electioneering over the regulated airwaves on election day, quite on a par with the impact that illegal electioneering inside a polling place would have. It was an enormous tort.

And it is on that basis that someone should sue the socks off the FCC and all of broadcast journalism.

Journalism has a simbiotic relation with liberal Democrat politicians, journalists and liberal politicians are interchangable parts. Print journalism is only part of the press (which also includes books and magazines and, it should be argued, the internet), and broadcast journalism is no part of the press at all. Liberals never take issue with the perspective of journalism, so liberal politicians and journalists are interchangable parts. The FCC compromises my ability to compete in the marketplace of ideas by giving preferential access addresses to broadcasters, thus advantaging its licensees over me. And broadcast journalism, with the imprimatur of the government, casts a long shadow over elections. Its role in our political life is illegitimate.

The First Amendment, far from guaranteeing that journalism will be the truth, protects your right to speak and print your fallible opinion. Appeal to the First Amendment is appeal to the right to be, by the government or anyone else’s lights, wrong. A claim of objectivity has nothing to do with the case; we all think our own opinions are right.

When the Constitution was written communication from one end of the country to the othe could take weeks. Our republic is designed to work admirably if most of the electorate is not up to date on every cause celebre. Leave aside traffic and weather, and broadcast journalism essentially never tells you anything that you need to know on a real-time basis.

No campaign in Texas history has seen so much spent in pursuit of office - $58 million so far by Mr. Sanchez and more than $16 million by Republican Gov. Rick Perry.

Although TV commercials typically account for the biggest share of any political budget, Mr. Sanchez has shelled out more on nontelevision expenses than Mr. Perry has spent on his entire campaign.

I had a hard time, rereading this article, finding a reference to the 500-pound gorilla of campaign expenditures--annoying TV/radio ads. They may also have buried a reference to push-polling in there somewhere. But if those two expensive campaign techniques were banned, the effectiveness of money in campaigns would be slashed.
Think another time if you believe that would be unconstitutional; the whole FCC is unconstitutional, after all--how do you square freedom of communication with the censorship of all but a few government licensees which is sine qua non of broadcasting?
The only problem with that approach is that it would leave in place the government propaganda monopoly known as broadcast journalism. Journalism is and always was and will be politics. And the idea that we-the-people actually need broadcasting of any other journalism than the weather and traffic report is pure propaganda. So at least SCotUS should put all political speech on an equal footing. Either overturn the (prospective) ban on TV ads just before an election, or go whole hog and ban broadcast journalism for two weeks prior to an election.

posted here

When are the liberals going to start the soul-searching "Why do they hate us?" routine that they seem to require from the rest of us?

Self-examination requires humility.
Humility and arrogance are mutually exclusive sentiments.
Arrogance is the defining characteristic of those who, "for the children," undertake to bully adults.
Therefore when a liberal speaks of self-examination or sacrifice "we" should make, s/he excludes him/her self. That is true even in the issue of raising taxes.
You or I feel good when we voluntarily donate our own money to specific charities such as our churches. The liberal, OTOH, considers your taxes to be her charitable contribution, without regard to her own payment (or if possible avoidance of) taxes.
It is not exactly true that her god is government; it is more true that she wants the feeling of power of making that true of you. It is not so much that her idea of virtue is the reduction of the freedom of others as that she rejects the concept of virtue itself.

That's the long way of answering. The short way is to say,

"When pigs fly."

Journalists have a duty to uncover the latest information, especially when its audience is feeling very literally under the gun. Their sniper reporting kept the public aware, and ultimately helped nab the bad guys. It's too bad that the relief at the sniper story's end had to be matched by the tried and false conventions of liberal spin.

Journalism is show business. Journalism's next deadline is simply "the show must go on" translated to print.
How many people died of other causes, in the area psychologically affected by that sniper, over the period of time he was operating? (Note: the smaller that number, the better we have things; the more good health we are taking for granted!) Journalism did not merely play to the public's burning curiousity about the sniper, journalism created that curiosity in the first place.
Journalism, let's face it, profits for an episode of danger. And if one looks at the coverage of the Rodney King verdict and subsequent riot it should be obvious that journalism has the ability to create episodes of danger quite legally. But somehow the person who writes a meladrama never makes his own profession, or those peculiarly likely to enter it, the villain of the piece.
The villain of the piece will always be someone upon whom the other characters in the play must and do depend. A natural candidate, IOW, for membership in the Republican Party.
The biased sniper aftermath

a small army of commentators . . . is making a good living attacking the news media.

These observers have done a good job of identifying many of the symptoms afflicting the news media; unfortunately, they have failed to diagnose the disease that is causing them or to offer a cure for it.

Yes, and this article is no better. The fundamental problem with journalism is that people sucker for the con that it is or should be "objective."
The business of journalism is attracting attention so people will see/hear commercial advertisements. That is, journalism is entertainment. The journalist's deadline is simply "the show must go on" (translated to print originally). "Man Bites Dog" is simply a mandate to be entertaining. And "No news is good news" is true because good news is seldom exciting enough to be news.
The consequences of the entertainment nature of journalism make a mockery of journalism's self-hyped "objectivity." Journalism's short deadlines make journalism superficial. Journalism's negativity combines with its superficiality to constitute anticonservatism.
What journalism calls "objective" is merely its own PC concensus. That consensus exists not only because of the aforementioned incentives to anticonservatism but because of the incentive to avoid flame wars with (other) people who "buy ink by the barrel."
Print journalism is part of the press, but then so are books and magazines. Broadcast journalism is regulated by the FCC and cannot be called part of the press.

What's Wrong With The American News Media?

Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act

In truth American politics have been relatively stably bipolar, with one or the other of the two main parties coopting any popular planks from third parties. But the Constitution makes no reference to political parties and indeed the framers of the Constitution decried "faction"--so much so that the 12^th Amendment was necessary to prevent the vice presidency from being de facto an engine of partisan mischief.
So "bipartisan" political regulation is unconstitutional in intent, on its face.
The truth is that Internet posting is the poor man's soap box and is more truly "the press" than even The New York Times is. The capital barrier to entry into competition with such as the Times is formidible. The Times is part of the press, certainly--but no more so than a sponsored newspaper published by the Libertarian Party or the Democratic Party would be.
Since the Times can by no means be held to any standard of nonpartisanship--not even on the front page, never mind the editorial page--its content is no evidence at all as to what would constitute objectivity. It does not even face perjury charges for inaccuracy or misplaced emphasis, and it most certainly is not official truth as a jury verdict is.
The upshot is that there is no gold standard for objectivity in journalism--journalism must be assumed to be partisan. That means that government-regulated journalism (such as licensed broadcast journalism) is illegitimate.

A BAN ON POLITICS

The market--and the press is a market--is neither Lib nor Conservative. As in all markets, the consumer is king and declares which products he will buy.

Isn't it clear from the posted article and from your own experience that FOX is delivering the goods the customer wants and CNN isn't?

This thread is one I started a year ago to address this issue.
The short answer is that Fox is perhaps the most popular cable News channel but it is not, IMHO, a true news organization. That is, it does not attract its audience with breaking news but with opinion. Balanced political opinion.
Balanced political discussion sounds "conservative" to liberals, who are unused to actual competition because journalism is not unlike carnival barking and thus does not lend itself to conservatism.

You really haven't addressed the issue I raise, friend. The news is a business. The purveyors of news have to give their customesrs what the customers want. The customers were content with Lib drivel for many years. Many still are. But a marginal amount of them, sufficient to turn the bottom line red, are starting to demand something different. The media are going to have to deliver the goods their customers want.

I'm the one who emphasizes what sort of business "the news" actually is. It is in fact part of the entertainment business. The imperatives of that business are to hype your product, and to have fresh product every day. That makes journalism superficial.
Journalism also is negative; bad news sells. And bad news cannot but insinuate that the organizations/institutions we rely on are inadequate. That makes "the news" consistently anticonservative.
Talk radio is really a reaction to the anticonservatism of journalism;
talk radio is in large measure news coverage of news coverage. And what I see in Fox News programs like Hannity and Colmes hardly differs from talk radio.

What it comes down it is an incredible degree of liberal intellectual vacuity. Or a vapid vanity. As if sensing that their dim-bulb is in fact the real state of affairs, they all huddle around each other, and reassure each other of their brilliance. 'I'm okay, you're okay!' All the Liberals really worry about is if they are REASSURED THAT THEY TRULY ARE SMART. And, hence, anyone disagreeing with their oh-so-virtuous and awesomely intelligent position, must, of necessity, be stupid. Ann Coulter conclusively confirmed this by becoming the principle thorn in their side by out-smarting their best at any and all talk shows. She had to be called stupid by these cretins just as fast as they could get to their typewriters where they could finger-peck the keys.

3 posted on 02/08/2003 11:45 PM EST by Paul Ross

Paul, I started this thread as a vanity to analyze "bias in the media." Over the months since 9/11 I have added thoughts to it, and tried to direct attention to it from time to time; in the process I have come to conclusions much like what you express (and very well) above.
IMHO all liberals, journalists included, fit the category you define. I think that it is most apparent in the interview portion of the Miss America pagent (not that I ever watch it)--you put some chick on nationwide TV and ask about something she hasn't spent any time analyzing, and all she knows is that it's safe to herd along with the journalists and other liberals. So that's what she does, like clockwork. Just be concerned, and you have it made, PR-wise. And that's all she cares about at that moment . . .

. . . More interesting is why there is so much BS in the media. Can it be that they try to?

1 Sensationalize. Is your carrier dying? Go to Iraq! You’ll be in the news. FREE PR, at other peoples expense. Just say “think of the children’, or “save the planet”. It needs not make any sense. Remember Billy Idol? Why did a 35-year-old man punch some unaware guy in a bar in the face? Didn’t “Vital Idol” come out shortly after that? By the way, if I lye about someone am I really really going to get in trouble? There are no consequences in reporting. Besides the very rare blatant libel/slander cases, what really happens? Even those who take this calculated risk and get sued, they still made millions, ask Michael Jackson.

2 Have it first on air before they even know what they’re looking at. They want to be the first with the reason why the shuttle broke up. They want to be the first to tell this or that. As a consequence, they tell a lot of crap that is with more careful analysis sometimes very unlikely if not impossible.

3 Are almost NEVER experts in the field from which they report. Look at the guys writing this stuff. You think the article above was written by someone who EVER was in the military? He read a book, and went to college, now he’s an expert with an opinion.

4 Have their own agenda, in the media mostly left. Even reporters, publishers, editors are humans. They too have their opinions. And since their open minded professionals, why not just present one side more favorable and as “THESE ARE THE FACTS”. 5 Are influenced by sponsors, advertising etc. Ask Dr. Laura about this. How does the media make its money? You really think the guy with the pocket book don’t matter?

6 Dumb it down so a 8th grader can read and follow it. Complex ideas/thoughts need to be compacted in one simple in color article with a fog index of no more than 8. Just ask USA TODAY.

7 Sell news like it’s a global product. CNN reports from all over with all their super experts in every country. But are they telling the truth if they just say their side of an opinion. Is there no truth any more? Is everything just relative and a matter perspective? CNN who caters and hopes for the viewers abroad does think so.

8 The media also does some other really neat things, like feed on each other. Some one writes an article that gets some attention; others follow and will even quote the same sources. Remember the whole Washington Post article stating the US consumes 24% of the global oil by itself? That’s all actually based off of the OPEC summary statements, and besides being interpreted wrongly (surly an innocent mistake not to sensationalize “THE US CONSUMES 24% OF THE GLOBAL OIL”) was then quoted by many others, even internationally.

The media is not to be taken seriously. If you want to know anything about anything, you need to research it, not using the Internet! News has become a synonym with entertainment. It is no longer tells the facts, it spoon-feeds you its interpretation there of. It’s garbage that has the power to influence the masses.

Red6

14 posted on 03/01/2003 10:39 AM EST by Red6
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/854460/posts

That was the probem before Fox News. There was no objective news. The Big Three or Big Liberal Three slanted the news to fit their agenda and simply refused to broadcast the facts that didn't bend to their liberal forge of lies. Believe me, I used to be a liberal too many years ago. I sneered at conservative allegations of liberal media bias and dominance. I was proved wrong and subsequently changed my political affiliation. I now simply cannot believe the words coming out of the mouth of anyone who describes him or herself as a liberal.

That doesn't mean that I think all liberals are liars or that they don't occasionally tell the truth. And I don't believe conservatives are correct all the time either. But liberals not only lie, they refuse to admit the truth when caught in lies.

Bernard Goldberg should be given a medal for telling the world what has been obvious to conservatives for many years. Big Media has had a liberal slant and agenda for fifty years or more. For Gods sake look at the photo of Dan Rather with his arm around Fidel Castro for crying out loud. But their time may be up, they have been found out. They cannot lie and mislead with impunity anymore. And it will only get worse for them.

Not really, I'm in print journalism. As far as the gist of your thread, it's an interesting perspective, although I don't know if I'd go to the extent you do. I have known some decent, hard-working broadcast journalists, but IMHO there is something about broadcast journalism that invites shallowness and people who are full of themselves.

I could tell you stories of what it's been like as a conservative for more than a quarter-century in the news business, but I don't have time at the moment, may respond in greater detail later. Let's just say it hasn't been easy, but I've managed to survive with my head high and without compromising my principles.

And I really don't consider journalism a profession. It's a trade. People started calling it a profession to make themselves feel important. I take it seriously because it's how I make my living, but I don't take it THAT seriously. I got into it because I have a knack for it, I liked the idea of being there to chronicle history as it happened and because it beat the option of working at a steel mill as my late father did for nearly four decades.

You have too many folks getting into the business today who think it is a profession and who are "out to change the world" or out to "make a difference" or out to "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted" or who want to "look out for the little guy against the eeeeeeevill big guys." You know, the kind of folks who used to join the Peace Corps (not that there's anything wrong with the Peace Corps per se). I think that's the biggest problem in journalism today. Nobody just wants to report the news and chronicle history.

As far as the liberal bias, I'd be lying through my teeth if I tried to tell you it wasn't there. I've seen it with my own eyes, experienced it close up and personally. But the egos that are in the business today, both print and broadcast, are almost as big a problem. These fools at the press conferences, etc., who ask these confrontational and oftentimes dumb questions want to make themselves part of the scene, when they basically ought to just be trying to get information.

And one thing I absolutely DESPISE is when a journalist hasn't done his homework and it shows in shallowness, dumb questions, etc. I don't think the reader/listener expects you to be an expert and a journalist shouldn't hold himself up as an expert, but I learned over the years that if you do your homework and be prepared, then you at least ought to have a ballpark/boilerplate idea of what is going on enough to where you can ask a cogent question or paint an accurate picture in your story. It takes work, much of it drudge work that isn't fun, and again you have so many people who are in love with themselves in the business today that they aren't willing to do their homework and put in the drudge work. "I don't need to do that, I'm a JOURNALIST! I'm a PROFESSIONAL!" It is to laugh.

Hope that helps, if you have anything specific you want to ask me about the business from the print end, fire away, but I won't be back here until later this evening.

I've been watching Fox quite a bit. They definitely seem biased to me.

I have been strongly interested in the issue of press bias for a generation, as my home page would attest. I conclude that "the fog of war" is simply an example of the general phenomenon of the uncertainty which always attaches to breaking news. (It is accutely felt in war because of the great value and pressing need for timely and prudent decision-making).
The sovereign remedy for the fog of breaking news is--time. If you are not forced into making a decision based only on breaking news, it is essential to withhold judgement until the actual facts are known with reasonable certainty. Thus, when we are concerned about "inflaming the Arab street" we are actually afraid that Arabs might make decisions on the basis of first reports (deliberately misleading in some cases) rather than letting the dust settle enough to find out from the Iraqi people, as the Iraqis themselves sort out the picture of what has been done to whom, by whom.
The truth is that all reports are interpretive; reporters who don't actually see the event firsthand (and they rarely do) listen to the reports of whoever claims most intimate knowledge of the event, and decide what they think happened. And even those who actually see an event can be subject to optical illusions or their own misinterpretations caused by their own predispositons.
Consequently you are better off reading a book about Operation Iraqi Freedom than you are watching CNN or Fox News. Of course, that book isn't in print yet. Which only means that your unwillingness to wait for the book seduces you into entering the fog of breaking news. But when you enter that fog it is well to understand the inherent limitations of that particular genre of nonfiction publication/broadcasting.
The more general point is that anyone who tries to convince you to live constantly in the fog of breaking news, and who claims to be "objective", is selling something. After all, it's far easier to burn a house down than than it is to build it, and more damatic to kill an adult than to bear and raise a child to adulthood. Consequently "No News Is Good News"--good news usually isn't "newsworthy." Such being the case, breaking news is systematically both negative and superficial--thus inherently anticonservative in tone.
It follows that a "patriotic tilt" to the news is actually necessary to make news reporting "fair and balanced." I make no appology for being a conservative, nor for listening to Fox News if I tune for news, nor for preferring a conservative commentary over "objective" news.

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