Thank God there are still serious grownups somewhere in the media.Absolutely. It's just a shame there aren't more of them and that they aren't more visible. Thank God, common sense still reigns somewhere.
It is thanks, primarily, to the FCC that the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal is so much less prominent than The New York Times and The Washington Post.That is, broadcast journalism amplifies the perspective of the Times and the Post - and, for that matter, the news pages of The Wall Street Journal - and does not amplify that of the editorial page of the Journal.
It is easy - once you clear your mind of the hype - to understand why the Times and the Post might project the perspective that they do as a mere self-interested business decision. It is only necessary to ask whether it is easier to attract attention with headlines like "New House Built on Elm Street" or with headlines like "House on Elm Street Burns Down," and you have the answer to the question of why negativity is such a prominent feature of newspapers. Combine that negativity with the superficiality inherent in the need for new attention-getting stories which hype the importance of reading the newspaper, under deadline pressure, and the result inevitably is arrogance and cynicism toward the people/institutions which actually do things.
The sort of arrogance and cynicism which is the natural tendency of the newsman is precisely what motivates the "liberal" politician to bully the producers and the protectors of American society. There's not a dime's worth of difference between the reporter who inflates the importance of his craft by publicizing claims that an innocuous product like Alar is poisonous to children eating apples, and the liberal politician who seizes on such stories as a rationale for gaining political power. Nor between the reporter who insinuates that a police error which results in the death of a citizen is on a par with Saddam's torture chambers and Hillary Clinton announcing the guilt of police officers who six years ago were on trial for the death of a civilian. Officers who, BTW, were subsequently found not guilty by the jury.
So it is clear that journalism is a special interest which arrogantly proclaims its own virtuous objectivity but which has an inherent tendency to advocate for liberal politicians. Is this a brief for censorship of the press? Hardly. It is however a brief for clear understanding of the First Amendment, and a firm adherence to its principles.
Unlike the Second Amendment, which articulates a reason for its limitation (the right of the people . . . shall not be infringed) on government power, the First Amendment lists freedoms which the government is to respect as rights in and of themselves. Those rights are enumerated as follows:
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments make plain that these rights are to be read expansively. I argue, first, that although the Internet did not exist at the time of the ratification the people have a right to use the Internet on a nondiscriminatory basis once it exists. FR, DU, and all - what one would have thought, in the days before McCain-Feingold, was an entirely unexceptionable position.
- freedom from any government-imposeed religion
- freedom to exercise religion
- freedom of speech
- freedom of the press
- freedom of assembly
- freedom to petition the government
Second, I argue that "the press" includes newspapers which are uncensored. That means that what newspapers commonly call "editorials" may not only be published on the editorial pages, they may be positioned as "objective news" on the front page without legal recourse by people who may demand that they be restricted to the "editorial page."
Third, I point out the obvious fact that the government will arrest you if you broadcast without a license. To the applause of licensed broadcasters and of newspaper publishers. The First Amendment forbids the government from arresting you for publishing a newspaper without a license, or for speaking on a particular subject without a license, yet it is taken for granted that it may censor you from broadcasting. It is patent, therefore, that First Amendment freedoms have not been applied to broadcasting - and that the government is ultimately responsible for whatever is legally broadcast. Responsible, in what way? How is it appropriately to be held to account, and on what grounds?
I delineated all of the rights mentioned in the First Amendment so as to bring out the fact that there are similarities among the rights in the various sections. Freedom of assembly and of petition is scarcely to be distinguished from freedom of speech; if you have the right to talk about anything without restriction, you certainly have the right to talk about what the government is and is not doing, and what the government should and should not do. If you have the right to freedom of speech, you have the right talk about God - and hence to exercise your religion, at least verbally. And if the government may not require you to pay taxes for the support of a religion to which you do not subscribe, surely the government would be (is) wrong to benefit certain people for the purpose of promoting a political perspective to which you do not adhere.
It follows that tendentious programming of radio and TV is a responsibility for which the government generally and the FCC particularly should be held to account. There are in fact large matters in which tendentious programming has historically affected the nation. Those matters should be cause for legal action against the FCC and its offending licensees. It is a sticky situation but then, if the government is to presume to censor you it is responsible for the result.
One chronic example is the quadrennial broadcasting of the presidential election, which is a perfect example of the fact that not everything which interests the public is in the public interest. In the interests of the secret ballot, we accept laws against politicing at a polling place - yet we allow government licensees to discuss the results of elections in some states before the polls are closed in other states. And even to discuss the results of a state - eg, Florida - before all the polls are closed in that state. Discussion which, notoriously, resulted in a monthlong legal lash-up when turnout in 2000 part of Florida was suppressed during what was in fact an excruciatingly close election.
But although the FL 2000 example was uniquely egregious in its observable effects, the even more chronic effect of government censorship of broadcasting lies in the everyday amplification of the "liberal" perspective of the Times and the Post, to the near-exclusion of the conservative perspective. IMHO the proof of this effect is seen in the "TANG Memo" fraud. Patent forgeries were broadcast as fact in a blatant attempt to discredit the Republican presidential candidate during an election (which is exactly, be it noted, the sort of thing that McCain-Feingold presumes to prevent advertisers from doing). And not only did CBS perpetrate that fraud, and not only did it institute a kangaroo court to exonerate itself from tendentiousness in the case, but all other "objective" journalists went along with the gag.
Any journalist who had ever used a typewriter (as opposed to a word processing computer) had to know that CBS was perpetrating a fraud - yet no "objective" journalist - print or broadcast - stated that bald fact. Which only shows that all "objective" journalists are in cahoots to the extent that Objective JournalismTM is an establishment which will never break ranks over the issue of the objectivity of its members.
The promotion of the interest of the arrogant, superficial, negative establishment known as "objective journalism" is not in the public interest because - although its members have equal rights to all other private citizens/organizations - it is a cabal whose particular interest is not identical to the public interest. Broadcast journalism, and the FCC which enables all of broadcasting, should be sued into oblivion. Right along with the Federal Election Commission.
Thank You for Wiretapping (WSJ Editorial - Nails It) Opinion Journal ^
My question would be, "Why would it be the business of the government school to 'get kids caught up in the news?'"To me that is a serious issue; Big Journalism loads the dice on the issue of the meaning of the First Amendment of the Constitution. It's perfectly true, of course, that newspapers are part of "the press," but
If you question that last assertion, your challenge is to explain why the government can require you to get a license before you can broadcast journalism (or anything else) - whereas you can buy a printing press and make a newspaper without so much as a "by your leave" to the government.
- books and magazines are also part of "the press" and
- broadcast journalism is not part of the press.
The other First Amendment issue I would bring to your attention is that "the freedom of speech, [and] of the press" is not instrumental. The Second Amendment explains the public utility of the right to keep and bear arms; the freedoms enumerated in the First Amendment are in no way conditioned or even justified by public utility. IOW, the First Amendment doesn't say that exercising religion is good for government, or that petitioning the government is a public service - and it does not say that objective journalism is essential to good government.
To the contrary, the First Amendment stricture against "abridging the freedom of . . . the press" is a rejection of the idea that "the press" can be required to be objective. Where then did we get the idea that journalism has to be objective? The journalists told us so - we submitted to the massive propaganda campaign to the effect that it would be rude to question the objectivity of journalism.
It is inherently impossible to prove that journalism is objective, for the simple reason that "lack of bias" is an unprovable negative. But - contrary to the propaganda campaign touting the objectivity of journalism - the fact that something is inherently unprovable even if it were true is no substitute for proof that in fact it is true. To the contrary, it is arrogant to argue from your own claim of your own virtue. Which is precisely what journalism's claims of objectivity boil down to.
As a genre of nonfiction, journalism is defined by its deadlines. And that means that journalism is inherently superficial. And, partly for that reason, jounalism is negative - the typical surprising change from one day to the next is not the construction of a house but a house burning down. Which explains why whole cities can grow over a period of decades, even while the newspapers are talking only about houses burning down.
So journalism is arrogant in claiming to have the virtue of objectivity, journalism is negative, and journalism is superficial. It follows that rather than being an embodiment of the public interest, journalism is itself a special interest. And if journalism is a special interest, it is proper to inquire as to whether journalism is in fact independent of politics.
The question of political tendency in journalism, like the question of objectivity in journalism, is not to be answered by the self-interested pleading of arrogant, powerful journalism. In fact the association of political parties with journalism is a natural fit; as the organs which determine who has a good image and who is unknown, journalism attracts politicians as bees attract honey.
So the question is less whether journalism is political than it is which parties do what in order to get PR from journalism. And my answer to that question is my tagline:
The idea around which liberalism coheres is that nothing actually matters but PR. The idea around which conservatism coheres is that the public interest is the Constitution and the laws enacted under it; liberalism considers that PR trumps everthing.
TEACHER NEEDS HELP EXPLAINING THE NSA "SPYING" STORY
1-1-06 | freedom4me