Well, in fact there is a principled reason for some government restriction on speech so long as there is any requirement for application for renewal of FCC broadcast licenses. Specifically, FCC licensees should no be allowed to claim the government's imprimatur on their "objectivity."bias is, in fact, hard to prove since it impacts news topic selection; selection of spokesmen for different points of view; timing of the news items; and innumerable other considerations beyond obvious, demonstrable, slant by the newscasters.The government does not have the right to claim objectivity for itself - else there is no logic to having elections which might change the wonderful "objective" government in being. So logically the government does not have the authority to tell us that the broadcast licensees - or anyone else - is purveying "objective" truth. And therefore it is an abuse for a broadcaster to claim objectivity in a way that suggests the imprimatur of the government.
IOW, it is not conservative talk radio or liberal talk radio but "objective journalism" - exactly the form of discourse which McCain-Feingold presumes to advantage over candidly partisan opinion - which should be censored from broadcast.
That is exactly correct, sinceHalf the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin FranklinThe actual bias of journalism is however quite patent - journalism is biased in favor of journalism. Journalism's rules for commercial success - "If it bleeds, it leads," "'Man Bites Dog,' not "Dog Bites Man,'" and "There's nothing more worthless than yesterday's newspaper" - a.k.a., "Always meet your deadline," a.k.a., "The show must go on" - are entertainment rules rather than rules which are in any sense calculated to promote wisdom (or "objectivity"). Journalism is simply the promotion of criticism (the function of journalism) over action and accomplishment. It is not true that journalism is biased toward liberal politicians, the causation runs in the opposite direction - liberal politicians promote journalism because they lack any other principle. "The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR."Socialism is simply the conceit that critics who have no bottom line constraints are, by their ability to second guess and make executives look bad, qualified to supervise those who actually are responsible to get things done.
There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities - all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The rôle is easy; there is none easier, save only the rôle of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds . . .
We need a Fairness Doctrine for media
Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^ | July 11, 2007 | BRUCE CHAPMAN
The opposite of scientism and of mysticism is candor. Rush Limbaugh is candid - he expresses himself openly, and continuously for hours at a time daily. Contrast that with the constricted "news" report which is scripted in advance (if it's not "breaking news") and which in any case is about a defined subject on which the reporter is, putatively, the expert and you and I are presumed to be ignorant. The reporter is always in a race to stay ahead of the rest of us in his knowledge of the story - and when that is no longer possible, the reporter drops the story as "old news" and moves on to another story in which the reporter has the advantage over the audience.