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Why the Press Irks the GOP (And Conservatives)
Hoover Digest ^ | Winter 2000 | Peter Robinson

Posted on 04/25/2002 9:25:33 AM PDT by MAKnight

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1 posted on 04/25/2002 9:25:34 AM PDT by MAKnight
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To: MAKnight

If the press is composed of such bright, talented people...

There's the problem right there. The best of them are useful idiots. The rest of them aren't even very useful.

2 posted on 04/25/2002 9:35:18 AM PDT by the gillman@blacklagoon.com
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To: MAKnight

The exception, of course, is Senator John McCain of Arizona. McCain, as everyone knows...

is no republican, but a dribbling socialist, like the press corps.

3 posted on 04/25/2002 9:37:25 AM PDT by the gillman@blacklagoon.com
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To: MAKnight
Re #1

Indoctrination and propaganda are twin pillars of leftist ideology's means of change for a long time. This means that education and journalims are much more important to leftists than conservatives.

4 posted on 04/25/2002 9:38:05 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
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To: MAKnight
Bump big time.
5 posted on 04/25/2002 9:44:33 AM PDT by farmfriend
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To: MAKnight
The Republican agenda, after all, is often quite negative

I'd put it a little differently. The Dems agenda (mostly negative agitprop) makes for good copy. The Republican agenda is pretty much laissez-faire. The front page of the newspaper is not filled with stories of how "nothing much happened downtown today". They have to go out of their way to find something, even if it's a pothole, out of which to make a big deal.

6 posted on 04/25/2002 9:49:57 AM PDT by lds23
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To: MAKnight

7 posted on 04/25/2002 9:54:16 AM PDT by Dog Gone
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To: MAKnight
As the old saw puts it, the job of a reporter is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” ]

Wonder where that "old saw" came from. I always thought the job of a reporter is to report facts.

8 posted on 04/25/2002 10:08:32 AM PDT by Dianna
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To: the gillman@blacklagoon.com
If the press is composed of such bright, talented people...

There was an ariticle in USNI Proceedings one time about the need to 'liberalize' the curriculum at the Naval Academy to include more humanities courses. The thesis was that leaders of men need to know more philosophy and sociology than physics and mathematics.

A crusty old retired USN Captain (whose name escapes me) wrote a letter to the editor in which he said, "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to be a social scientist, but it does take a rocket scientist to be a rocket scientist."

Frankly, most members of the media are NOT particularly bright. If they had real analytical abilities, they'd become engineers/computer experts (where a good job can be reliably attained), or MBAs (where a high-paying job can often be obtained) rather than major in a soft area like journalism (where aside from a miniscule percentage of hyper-rich, most in the 'profession' are standing around car wrecks in the middle of the night in the rain). Since they couldn't qualify as 'rocket scientists', they became journalists.

Most in the media think they're getting the facts right if they get a quote correct, regardless of whether the person quoted told the truth. They are Democrat/liberal (accepting the sad corruption of both those terms in modern usage) because:

1) The liberal arguments don't stand up to analysis. They're all emotional, and so appeal to those without an ability to think logically.
2) Concentrating power in the fewest possible hands makes it easier for those who live by access to power. The Democratic party is the party of big, centralized government, which benefits the media.

I don't think there is a conscious conspiracy to be liberal in the media. I think it's self-selecting among those who can convey emotion without being limited by analysis and logic. Not coincidentally, that's what happens in Hollyweird, too.
9 posted on 04/25/2002 10:31:54 AM PDT by Gorjus
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To: MAKnight
"Reporting, fact checking, analysis, writing—all the jobs that the press performs require considerable intelligence and skill. Republicans know that. If the press is composed of such bright, talented people..."

This statement gives the press far too much credit.

Reporting, fact checking, analysis, writing do indeed require considerable intelligence and skill. Unfortunately, many liberal reporters and media outlets don't bother with tedious chores like "fact-checking". Nor do they undertake the hard work that objective analysis requires; not when they can re-write the fax from the DNC.

The press may well think of themselves as "bright and talented". But, all too often, they seem simply unwilling (or unable) to do the hard work that their craft should demand. And, all too often, their stories betray, not just a liberal bias, but a total ignorance of the subject at hand.

The Mainstream Media:

IGNORANCE ON PARADE

10 posted on 04/25/2002 11:09:50 AM PDT by okie01
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resentment of the media remains as basic to the identity of Republicans as does resentment of the English to the identity of the Irish.

Uh ... I have never met an Englishman who wasn't completely indifferent to the Irish. Not wanting to sit for hours listening to monologues about imperial "oppression" is not the same thing as hostility to their identity.

11 posted on 04/25/2002 11:12:57 AM PDT by Tomalak
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To: Tomalak
Damn I just read that totally wrongly. The Irish certainly do resent the English, but not the other way around.
12 posted on 04/25/2002 11:13:48 AM PDT by Tomalak
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To: MAKnight
I don't know why this is such a mystery.

If the reporters and editors are liberals, they will write liberal stories. Since most reporters and editors are liberals, the media is liberal.

Objectivity is a myth.

If all of us on the board were reporters writing about Clinton, could we be "objective" and write about his achievements rather than his crimes?

Some maybe, but I sure couldn't.

Unless conservatives go into journalism rather than into jobs actually produce something of value, things will never change.

13 posted on 04/25/2002 12:18:33 PM PDT by 07055
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To: MAKnight
Most media people consider themselves to be intellectuals who deserve far better pay and prestige than they get from the free market. Thus, they develop a hostility toward the free market and its advocates.
14 posted on 04/25/2002 12:47:25 PM PDT by steve-b
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To: steve-b
Re #14

They envision a society where they comprise the top of pyramid. Capitalist society does not always reward them. Their mentality resembles that of power-hungry priests, the sanctimony and the power lust lumped together.

15 posted on 04/25/2002 1:48:48 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
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To: MAKnight
I work in the media, and I can tell you what the problem is: journalism schools.

Years ago, writers became reporters by joining a paper at the lowest rungs, writing obits, attending city council meetings, and really learning the craft (I did this in radio). Post-Watergate, after Woodward and Bernstein became big media stars, newspapers started hiring people who had "journalism" degrees. The students who got journalism degrees overwhelmingly tended to be those who had a liberal agenda, wanted to promote it, wanted to "change the world" etc. (Not coincidentally, they were also students with no aptitude for harder subjects, such as science, business or math). They went to places like Columbia University, where they were surrounded by other people who all think alike, instructed by tenured liberal professors who never had to worry about being fired, no matter what kind of blather they spouted. Then they all went to work in the media, again surrounded by a tight cocoon of people who all think the exact same way. This is why they can't even conceive of the idea that they are biased: why, they're just saying what EVERYBODY THEY KNOW thinks!

Let me tell you, when I go to a meeting of our local press club, I really have to watch my tongue, or I'll probably tell someone how full of manure he is, or what a lying rapist Clinton was, or how it was Gore who tried to steal the election, not Bush, and end up getting forcibly evicted.

16 posted on 04/25/2002 1:58:54 PM PDT by HHFi
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To: MAKnight
Those that choose journalism and broadcasting as a profession will predominantly be those that believe their words and thoughts can perfect mankind. They will feel that their insight into a distant, complex or hidden issue, problem or event is going to make mankind better.

Sowell distinguishes these as believers in the Unconstrained vision of mankind. In a Conflict of Visions he lays out the tendancies of this disposition to always come down to a certain side in every context.

17 posted on 04/25/2002 2:03:03 PM PDT by KC Burke
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To: the gillman@blacklagoon.com
"...Reporting, fact checking, analysis, writing—all the jobs that the press performs (Performs---LOL) require considerable intelligence and skill..."

I got this far into the article.Is this supposed to be a real article?Is this author HIGH?What is quoted in bold above, is how Rowland Evans used to do the news.This "how things are now" type of sentence is just laughable.

18 posted on 04/25/2002 3:21:12 PM PDT by Pagey
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To: MAKnight
As a demonstration of the effect the press has on voters, the incident could hardly have been neater if it had been designed in a laboratory. When they saw the debate for themselves, Americans reached one conclusion. When they saw the debate through the medium of the press, they reached a different conclusion. It was, to use Pete Wilson’s phrase, the darndest thing.

Good article.

Bush during his VP debates and Wilson on prop 187, Buchanan's convention speech in '92, and more recently with Lazio during his debate with Clinton, the press constantly employs the Big Lie to suit their Marxist ideology.

Thank goodness their time will soon be over.

19 posted on 04/25/2002 3:37:39 PM PDT by skeeter
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To: HHFi
Re #16

Your description basically means that American jouranlism has become more like European journalism, whose real goal is to educate and elighten masses, not reporting facts.

20 posted on 04/25/2002 3:38:35 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
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