Posted on 10/11/2002 7:21:39 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Is America's left-wing media elite about to suffer the fate of the Communist Party of the old Soviet Union? I ask this question because my weekend reading (Dimitri Volkogonov's history of the Soviet leadership, "Anatomy of An Empire," and Mark Mathis' tome on the U.S. media, "Feeding the Media Beast") raised some interesting parallels between the Soviet leadership and the current structure of the U.S. news media.
The similarities between Volkogonov's description of the behavior of the Soviet party leaders and recent revelations by Mathis and others about the thought processes, biases, behaviors and prejudices of American reporters are uncanny.
Volkogonov, a Red Army general who advised and observed the last few Soviet bosses first hand, described the Soviet leadership as a cadre of naive, ignorant, narrow-minded, lazy, short-sighted, bigoted and arrogant men with an uncompromising and absolute belief in a simplistic, shallow and completely erroneous ideology.
Mathis, a former TV reporter and anchor, and former CBS newsman Bernard Goldberg offer a similar description of today's American media elitists; a cadre of narrow-minded, ignorant, lazy, short-sighted, bigoted and arrogant people with an absolute belief in a silly, simplistic, shallow and completely erroneous ideology.
Like the Soviet leaders, the media elitists publicly espouse high ideals and concern for the common man while privately behaving like aristocrats and devoting most of their energies to protecting, preserving and increasing their wealth, power and privilege.
Goldberg revealed that when newswoman Connie Chung's popularity started to rival that of Dan Rather's, Rather deliberately destroyed her career - much as the Soviet Communist Party bosses deliberately stripped Marshal Zhukov, the great Russian hero of World War II, of his power and position because he was more popular than they were. Get the picture? Rather's position as the number one news anchor is more important than anything else.
The similarities go beyond this. The Communist bosses believed that they had an absolute mandate to rule the Soviet Union, and that their ideology was absolutely correct. The American media elite believes that the collection of prejudices, half-truths, truisms and liberal politics it calls an ideology is the absolute truth and that they have an absolute right to force those truths on the American people - just as the Communists believed that their ideology was the gospel truth and that they had an absolute moral right to force their beliefs on the Russian people by any means possible.
The old men in the Kremlin just couldn't understand the simple fact that their ideology and the system based upon it couldn't and wouldn't work. They couldn't understand why Soviet agriculture, industry and technology weren't able to keep up with other nations and why the Russian people weren't happy under their rule.
America's media elite can't grasp the obvious truth that the liberal system and ideology they favor simply doesn't work and is actually harming the nation. (For example: social problems like poverty, homelessness and racism haven't disappeared despite massive government programs and high taxes; racism hasn't disappeared despite political correctness; liberal policies may be harming the family and encouraging crime; liberal peace agendas may actually encourage war and conflict with other nations etc.)
Today's news media leaders find themselves in a similar situation to the Soviet leaders. They retain much of their power, position and influence but nobody actually believes in them or their ideology any more, just as the Russian public in the 1970s and 80s considered the Soviet leadership a bad joke and saw the obvious truth that Communism was a shoddy lie.
Average Americans today consider the media leadership (particularly the big three network anchormen Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather) a bad joke and no longer believe anything the big media says.
According to the Pew Research Center, two-thirds of Americans do not believe what they see on the TV news is real. Radio talker Rush Limbaugh now probably has more influence than all major TV news personalities put together.
Rather, in particular, can't understand why he is not a beloved and influential national figure like Walter Cronkite was at the height of his popularity. In the same way, Leonid Brezhnev failed to grasp why he couldn't command the kind of respect and fear as a Soviet leader that Lenin and Stalin did.
The media leaders' behavior in light of these developments is interesting. At first, they ignored them like the Soviet leaders. Then when the evidence became too convincing, the media leaders started to make superficial changes rather than real or substantial reforms much like the Soviet leaders did.
Just as Gorbachev allowed McDonalds to open in Red Square but failed to reform Soviet agriculture, the media elitists cover their broadcasts with flags and write books praising World War II veterans rather than implement policies of balanced reporting, hire a better grade of journalists, or give the most blatantly biased reporters the boot.
The Communist Party leaders ignored or tried to silence their critics - the Russian dissidents. The media elitists also have ignored and tried to silence their critics, especially those news people who have dared criticize them. For years, they deliberately destroyed the careers of those news people who voiced views counter to the `party line.'
Remember the discipline conservative ABC newsman John Stossel faced for practicing the same kind of biased reporting as the rest of his reporters? Stossel's crime was not filing biased stories based on questionable and inaccurate information (something of which Stossel was undoubtedly guilty). It was attacking liberal sacred cows and adopting a conservative bias. More recently they have thrown individuals like Goldberg who raised legitimate criticisms out of their organizations and ignored them.
Like the Communist Party bosses, the media elitists have failed to see the disastrous situation they've created for themselves. And like the Communist Party bosses, the media elitists will probably find themselves out in the cold when their system collapses.
(Daniel G. Jennings is a freelance writer and journalist who lives and works in Denver, Colo. He has worked as a reporter and editor for daily and weekly newspapers in five states.)
Free Congress Foundation
-Yet-
You're still young; but, as bright & spirited as any I've known.
Your day's coming, kid.
When it happens articles like this one, will be a a part of what you are, think, *and* write.
That's why I interrupted your busy day to ping you over here.
"Funny isn't it..when I write plain and honest truths, the dumbwits who can't fill in a job application form to get themselves off welfare, all of a sudden find themselves writing tomes in objection."
Well whadda ya know, yet another similarity to we Yanks!
Here stateside??
We like tio say, "The people in the free seats boo the loudest."
See my point?
"when they do that though, I KNOW, I'm fighting the right fight!"
Yup.
You sound as if you've got it, alright.
" Interesting too...the Irish Times (ye know the Up Chuck publication of the chattering classes, which is slowly going down the financial tubes) has just appointed a new editor. A woman. And a conservative (well in many respects).
In America they can say anything they GDed please, Miss AM.
But those of us who fancy ourselves worldy wise watch what they do.
~eh?
"The tide is a-turning"
We shall see about that now, shan't we?
You really need to get to know the poster known as, "Mudboy Slim," much better.
...another optomist & kindred spirit, I'd say. ;^)
...& that's really saying something these days, y'know. ;^)
I see Old Wally fooled you, too. He was (and is) just as big a liberal scum-bag as Dan Blather---he was just a bit more subtle about it. The "jovial grandfather" image fooled a lot of folks.
The RATS are in disarray...eradicate the rodents !!
Fire Democrats, Hire Republicans !!
GWB Is The Man !!
Snuff Saddam, NOW !!
Death To all Tyrant's !!
The Second Amendment...
America's Original Homeland Security !!
Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!
Molon Labe !!
Yup...sounds like Peter Jennings to me!
Today's news media leaders find themselves in a similar situation to the Soviet leaders. They retain much of their power, position and influence but nobody actually believes in them or their ideology any more, just as the Russian public in the 1970s and 80s considered the Soviet leadership a bad joke and saw the obvious truth that Communism was a shoddy lie.
"News is what someone, somewhere is trying to suppress, the rest is just advertising" - Lord Northcliffe, British Press Baron http://www.bilderberg.org/
"Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent every year to control the public mind". Prof Naom Chomsky.
"The New York Times is for us what Pravda was for the Soviets....America is a country full of conspiracy, and yet when you mention the word on television the interviewer giggles, so that people will think only nuts who believe in abduction by aliens believe in conspiracies. But don't they know they are being had? They are being lied to every day."--Gore Vidal (Observer magazine 12 Aug 2001)
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with.
Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
By: John Swinton Former Chief of Staff for the New York Times was one of America's best loved newspapermen. Called by his peers "The Dean of his Profession" Date: 1953
And my favorite :
The television business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs.
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
I hope so! That's music to my ears. Thanks for the ping.
FGS
I've noticed that too. It's amazing just how well-written the "average (liberal) person's" letters are... Of course, they're usually cribbed or pre-written from a single or a few sources.
Yes indeedy. A very good piece.
Appears to me the Bolsheviks are taking a different tack with America's great experiment. State, ownership of production is out(way too messy); state ownership of information is in(much easier to manufacture). Assimilate production and information into a working partnership, and we and our representatives in gubmint can just go along for the ride. Our Constitution will have to undergo some modifications along the way, but that shouldn't be a problem for this bunch; after all it is a living document---they said so.
Question is, can we stop this attack on our society and culture? And, an attack it is, little different than flying airliners into buildings. But, it will be much more costly at the end of the day. The heart and soul of our nation is being eaten away by maggots and the media enablers aren't blowing the trumpets in warning. We know where they stand. Whoya gonna call???
BTW, I suggest adding a third party to our otherwise two party system if this thing really takes off; CORPORATS.........Well???
Don't get me wrong; I'm a fan of corporate America, but if the maggots eat the guts out of this country, somebody/something has to fill the hole ; )
FGS
Yes indeedy. A very good piece.
Appears to me the Bolsheviks are taking a different tack with America's great experiment. State, ownership of production is out(way too messy); state ownership of information is in(much easier to manufacture). Assimilate production and information into a working partnership, and we and our representatives in gubmint can just go along for the ride. Our Constitution will have to undergo some modifications along the way, but that shouldn't be a problem for this bunch; after all it is a living document---they said so.
Question is, can we stop this attack on our society and culture? And, an attack it is, little different than flying airliners into buildings. But, it will be much more costly at the end of the day. The heart and soul of our nation is being eaten away by maggots and the media enablers aren't blowing the trumpets in warning. We know where they stand. Whoya gonna call???
BTW, I suggest adding a third party to our otherwise two party system if this thing really takes off; CORPORATS.........Well???
Don't get me wrong; I'm a fan of corporate America, but if the maggots eat the guts out of this country, somebody/something has to fill the hole ; )
FGS
Who?
Moi?
"I'm a fan of corporate America, but if the maggots eat the guts out of this country, somebody/something has to fill the hole."
Something will "fill the hole," too.
That's been the Saving Grace of our beloved Republic for 250 years.
The *something* always comes from places unseen, unthought of, too.
That's why all comers have failed.
...it's what's behind our *real* strength & longevity.
FGS
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