[adam stevens]

We hate the press because they are almost all traitors who want to see America defeated and conquerred by Osamma and Saddam.

Luckily with FOX news, blogs, freerepublic.com, and sites with real journalists like Drudge Report, Newsmax, World Net Daily and Frontpagemagazine.com we don't need those scumbages anymore.

[mewzilla]

Dear Mr. Jones, would you like some cheese to go with your whine?

[Jagdgewehr]

We need, instead, to spend some time figuring out what we can honorably do to nudge those polling results back up.

Investigate, research, and report the truth, and throw away your biased templates.

Thats a good start.

[NorCoGOP]

Despite the tragedy of Sept. 11, we had a lot of good news to cover, and even pieces on the tragic aspects of the story seemed to forge a common sense of outrage and purpose. The more thorny elements tended to be put aside until a later day.

This spring and summer, that day came.

Translation:

We had to put aside our liberal anti-Bush agenda for a short while, but, we are back to our old selves again....

[Drango]

So why have we lost the public's high regard? Does the public have our number or does the public misjudge us? And what should we do now?

Ahhh grasshopper, rather than mocking Bias and Slander, read them, learn them, study them... and then, when you think you know what they say...read them, learn them, study them again.

Then perhaps you will be ready to understand...

[Welsh Rabbit]

He's upset because before 9/11 a majority of Americans were apathetic about the media's leftist bias, but now they are a lot more sensative to anti-Americanism in press, and these "journalists" are having to explain themselves for the first times in their careers.

[rdb3]

Why Do Many Readers Hate Us Again?

Frankly, I don't care.

Oderint dum metuant.

[RoseofTexas]

MEDIA WHORES, MEDIA WHORES, MEDIA WHORES, MEDIA WHORES!!! I could go on forever! :)

[RAT Patrol]

Where do I start?

How about this: "We need them to believe we are acting on their behalf when we fight for such things. And we need the public to understand that while journalism is not often perfect, that doesn't mean that it's calculatedly slanted and biased." Act on our behalf and maybe we will believe it. Don't get the cart before the horse. Duh! If journalists would see themselves as referees instead of players in the game of politics, they'd do much better at being balanced. Instead, they view themselves as the keepers of democracy, the holders of the truth, and the guides of our individual and collective conscience.

Most journalists can readily see that bias is "in the eye of the beholder." I will give them that to a point. Yet a majority of them cannot see that, equally true, news perspective is in the eye of the reporter. Why are we colored by our ideals and they are not? Are they saying they are super-human? It sounds like it. They lose credibility when they cannot admit that they too are human and make mistakes. (Other than the blanket "we are not perfect" which is supposed to cover every sin they commit without ever actually admitting wrong doing. The government needs watching. The people are biased. But the press gets a free ride--total freedom, total access, no accountability, no admission of political leanings or bias....just ask 'em. They're perfect.)

The press needs just as much supervision as the government does. The people of this country need just as much free access and openness from the press, to keep them honest, as they need from the government. No one gets a free ride or a constitutional blank check.

Here's a little analogy I came up with:

Ringwraiths: Ensnared by power, the media are losing credibility (a lesson from The Lord of the Rings)

With a diversity of intentions, our national media are losing their credibility. It isn't hard to see why. Power has frequently led men astray. Even with a desire to do good and a commitment to use strength only to help the weak, power can begin to wield a pull of its own. The dark side of power--control--easily ensnares the human heart when not carefully kept in check.

Wise men--the Gandalfs of our time--with an understanding of human nature, have always known this to be true. Unfortunately, as power increases, wisdom often decreases. Along with it goes restraint, balance, fairness, moderation, morality, humility, and--worst of all--freedom.

This brings me to the media. The power these corporate conglomerates hold over our political process is obvious. They set the debate. They decide what is and isn't news. They generously distribute credibility or criticism to whomever they choose--creating fame or assigning blame in the process. Perspective is theirs alone. Their precious.

What these media giants forget is easily discovered in our history books. The people rebel when power is oppressive. It is not difficult to recognize one-sided arguments and "news" presentations held captive to only one ideology. Credibility is quickly being lost by the media's unrelenting grip on their own power perches.

But there is hope. Listen to the people, Media Ringwraiths (read: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, PBS, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Kansas City Star, Time, Newsweek, etc..). Release your grip. Allow balanced and fair debate to take place on your television airwaves, in your newspaper and magazine pages, and on your radio programs. Consider all perspectives when framing news stories or identify your partisan ties. Make your commentary arguments with reasonable and honest debate, rather than with unfair criticism, gossip, and name-calling. Give the people of this country a chance by leveling the playing field. It is the right thing to do.

Toss your ring of power into the fires of Mount Doom before your credibility is un restorable.

[M Kehoe]

Seems like Mr. Jones is telling the sheeple 'we just don't know what's good for us'. Nah, couldn't be...as their collective revenues go south.

5.56mm

[RAT Patrol]

I am going to add that not all journalists can be put into the same power-greedy category. I've read many, and talked to many, that I think really do try to be fair and balanced. Sure, no one is perfect and sometimes we might define balance a little differently, but they listen and they try very hard to do a good job. Media critics (myself included) need to be willing to say what we like, not just what we don't like. We need to target only the worst offenders so we (1) Don't lose our own credibility; and (2) Allow the decent ones room to learn, listen and improve in their very challenging job. We must be sure we spare the good ones--and they are out there.

[RAT Patrol]

Ping

[IronJack]

Let's see. Immediately after 9/11, the press set aside their liberal bias for a brief, shining moment. And the country rallied to them, and invested their trust in them once again.

Fast forward to one year later. The liberal drumbeat is deafening and public trust in the press has ebbed to all-time lows.

It doesn't take a clairvoyant to see the cause and effect here. But it DOES take a brain, and a willingness to admit there's a problem. Stupidity and denial being the hallmarks of today's press, it isn't likely they'll get very far.

[Nick Danger]

We need, instead, to spend some time figuring out what we can honorably do to nudge those polling results back up.

Mr. Jones:

It is not really that difficult. People have been telling you what you need to do for a long time. You just don't want to hear it.

You saw how close the election was in 2000. Most elections are like that. What it means is that the population is roughly divided in half between those who lean left, and those who lean right.

This isn't true in your newsroom, is it? It isn't true in hardly any newsroom. Poll after poll taken of journalists show that journalists as a group are overhwelmingly Democratic in their politics.

Half of the population can see this in everything you write. We see it in the choice of stories you think are important, and the stories you ignore. We see it in the way you choose the "experts" who get quoted in your stories. We see it in the way you turn to certain left-leaning groups time after time to provide special-interest perspective.

It all seems quite normal to you, I'm sure. The groups and expert you choose are "mainstream." All journalists use them. Yes, they do. And half of the population sees the lot of you as a bunch of left-leaning propagandists for doing it.

When is the last time a major-newspaper journalist called the president of Concerned Women for America, instead of Kim Gandy of NOW, for the "women's" side of an issue? NOW is full of avowed Marxists, for God's sake; they don't even hide it. CWA has ten times the membership, yet it is ignored... because it is not of the political left. You do this on every issue, from the environment to foreign trade. All your experts, all your membership groups, all your "think tanks" and "research institutes" are of the Left. You hadn't noticed that? We do. We notice it every time you do it.

You know what you need? You need Newsroom Diversity. And never mind the racial or gender makeup; what you need is political diversity. So long as 90-plus per cent of working journalists belong to one political party, and color everything they write and do with the perspective associated with that political party, that half of the public which does not share your political belief system will continue to find you untrustworthy, biased, and worst of all, arrogant about it.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

We need for the public to understand that it is not unpatriotic to want government officials to leak information.

That's right, it's not unpatriotic. When these leaks get our troops killed in the field, or compromise our security, it's TREASON.

[Parley Baer]

Well if you would quit your left wing editorializing in the front pages that would be a start. From Sgt. Friday on Dragnet, "The truth ma'am, nothing but the truth" would also help. Parley

[irv]

Various interest groups have tried to intimidate news organizations into tailoring their reporting to satisfy a particular political perspective.

Some of us would be overjoyed if they just stopped tailoring their "reporting" to satisfy a particular (Left-wing, anti-American) agenda.

There were so many other self-serving assumptions and distortions in this article I gave up trying to respond to them and just went with the one.

[NathanR]

The point is that we need the public's support, now more than ever.

Why? You don't support the public. You think you must lead the way, not support.

We need for the public to understand that it is not unpatriotic to want government officials to leak information.

Yes it it is. That kind of "information" kills Americans and you know it. It is just that the military are not as stupid as they were in "Nam".

That's how we -- and our readers -- find out about what Washington is really up to. We need the public to care about access to documents.

So you can pass the information on to the enemy? Riight.

We need them to believe we are acting on their behalf when we fight for such things.

Of course you want us to believe that you are fighting for us. In your eyes, the fact that you are not, is pretty much irrevelant.

And we need the public to understand that while journalism is not often perfect, that doesn't mean that it's calculatedly slanted and biased.

Just because the bias is not calculated, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and you know it. It is called Point of View (POV) and everyone who goes to J. School comes out with one. Also that a reporter should just report the facts is passe' and went out sometime durng the Viet Nam war.

[Navy Patriot]

Mr. Jones has discovered some of the reasons thinking Americans distrust the media. Unfortunately his defence of the responsibility of reporters to uncover the news and activities of government presupposes that the reporters do not have a socialist liberal progressive bias that will filter and determine what is, and how it is reported. It is a false assumption that is the first one made by most mainstream media.

[facedown]

Bump

[lara]

Go here to vote in this PBS poll. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/mediamatters/302/journalists.html Jones hosts the Media Matters show on PBS. Not surprisingly, the liberal answers are winning 58% to 42%.