Posted on 11/01/2002 6:56:43 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
But unless someone comes up with something we citizens can actually do about it, then what's the point of us all getting headaches about something that is totally outside our control?[yawn]...is that how you really feel?
THE WORLD IS CONTROLLED BY THOSE THAT SHOW UP
Whose Job is It?
This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody . There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody Could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.
It appears there are 4 kinds of people in the world:
1. Those that make it happen
2. Those that watch it happen
3. Those that say "what happened?"
4. And those that try to keep it from happening
What can we do? Utilize the marketplace. Competition in the form of cable news and the internet will certainly force the 'old news' to either change/reform, or disappear in history's dustbin.
What can we do? Cancel your subscription AND tell them why. Inform their advertisers.
What can you do? Inform those that you come in contact with of your displeasure and your rationale for it. Or you can come on an internet site and yawn.
AND finally...
Because the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Before I read the article, I was going to respond, "Liberal", as the cause. This is certainly the root cause and encompasses all the ills he lists.
Prescribing for a cure is not so easy. The rot is institutionalized here, just as in most of academia. One cannot build a house on a rotten foundation, one can only destroy the foundation and start anew.
Most of the journalism schools have turned out generations of Liberal sychophants to write and report. Obviously, none of these people are willingly going away or changing their world-view. We need brand new, conservative journalism schools, honest professors and students, and jobs for them when they graduate. But, the biggest thing needed by them is a moral anchor, and that is not a quick process.
It will be years before this can be turned around, if it can. Economic pressure can help. But, in the end, it is what is in the hearts of the Media people, their bosses and the demands of the American People that will prevail in what we get in the Media. We all reap what we sow.
Only a conservative and religious revival of great and long-lasting magnitude can do the job of reviving the heart on a large scale. Otherwise, it will be the same-old-same-old.
Plus Journalism degrees are for students that can't earn a REAL college degree...
Good one. Laziness is a spiritual problem. And there are spiritual consequences when we stop worshipping the Creator and worship His creation-----radical environmentalism, science/scientist/doctors and the celebrity cult (Katie Curic, Sam Donaldson, Her Royal Highness).
I am disgusted, but not surprised that the new priests (psychological experts, racial- profiling experts, you are too fat – I need to take your Hostess Twinkie experts) ask idiotic questions. You have to give it to the media, they do realize that Expert + TV = Truth.
Agreed. So let's come up with ideas. Sunday CNN spent 10 minutes (repeated unknown number of times in 24 hours) with NEWS COVERAGE that EVERYONE SHOULD GET THE NEW VERSION OF AOL.
If the Kmart boycott had an impact (which I believe it did) then we should have double the impact on AOL. What would it take to organize for everyone to DROP AOL ! !
A side benefit is Ted Turner would have nothing to give to the UN. That in itself is worth the effort.
I think I can add some further clarity too the dishonesty, hypocrisy and arrogance that's prevalent throughout America's news media.
First, mysticism is when a person creates problems that don't exist. Often believing in non-reality as though it is reality. For example, real, valid power is achieved by working honestly and rationally in a productive or creative job that adds value to the worker himself or herself, others and society via free-market competition. With it comes healthy self-esteem and earned respect.
Most people in the higher ranks of America's news media -- reporters, journalists, editors and publishers -- believe the non-reality that power comes from 1) peer group (fundamentally and in general equally or more dishonest than him or herself) or 2) being able to sway his or her audience toward the news reporter's bias. Often a combination of the two. For example, the irrational bias perpetrated by the news media that guns are the problem rather than violent criminals. Violent criminals are dishonest and irrational in their motives which they then carry out in their actions. Most mainstream news-media "personalities" are dishonest and irrational in their motives which they carry out in reporting the news.
Second, irrationality. It's irrational to put forth via the news media that a person can assign or give to a person, group of persons or government a right he doesn't himself possess.
For example, no person has the right to barge onto another person's property uninvited. Nor does a person have the right to "camp" or take up a seat on another person's property once the property owner has asked the person -- whom the property owner invited in the first place -- to leave. Who is to say when a person is uninvited? The property owner. Who is to say when an invited guest has overstayed their welcome? The property owner.
That law, if you will, is universal. It's objective law. Objective laws exist beyond the reach of man-made law or political-agenda law or media agenda or media bias. That is, objective law regarding access to property and who holds the right is valid on all property at the property owner's discretion.
The American news media proclaims from on high that the individual belonging to this group of people and that group of people and all manner or segments of individuals that can be corralled into a group have, as an individual member of said group, the right to barge in uninvited, and when invited, the right to overstay his or her welcome.
That agenda, communitarian notion is proclaimed form on high to protect the little guy. The little guy being an individual of any special interest group. Special interest groups that self-proclaim to have rights that as separate individuals no person in the group has the right to impose on another individual.
Quite frankly, it is the rule of tribalism -- tyranny of a majority over the individual. It's a form of terror inflicted on the individual that if the individual doesn't bow to the tribe's irrationality, dishonesty and mysticism he or she will become the tribe's next victim. There in lies the underlying motive and cause of almost all politicians, bureaucrats, mainstream news media "personalities" and many academics: to undermine honesty.
Dishonesty, mysticism and irrationality are the problem/cancer that terrorizes the little guy.
The real root of the problem, as Goldberg and this author hint at, is the social elitism the media aspires to.
Mainstream media news reporters are too lazy to put forth the effort. They choose to open doors wherever possible and keep them open. The very people the media should be reporting as crooks, criminals and scoundrels are the ones they praise.
What a colossal hoax it is. For of course the interviewee -- the bigger the better to which politicians and bureaucrats are among the biggest with academics and "specialists" bought by the media mantra of open all doors coming in right behind -- those people (hidden crooks) being interviewed would never open the door if he or she knew that the reporter intended to expose them as frauds.
Put rhetorically: Do you really think a politician or bureaucrat would welcome an interview conducted by a reporter or journalist knowing that he or she was going to expose their participation in government fraud? Do you think mainstream reporters and journalists would expose the politicians and bureaucrats for their frauds knowing that they'd be shutting the door to any future interviews with that politician or bureaucrat and his cronies?
Conversely, there's a large and growing cadre of articulate, well-thought-out writers on the WWW. They are the opposite of the lazy reporters that rely on the easy-to-open doors of covering for crooks.
For the articulate writers on the Web, their open doors are among themselves, and their readers. Their essence is that they have to honestly earn an open door policy with their interviewees and they welcome their readers feedback. Often looking for other articulate writers of integrity and honesty among the feedback they get from readers.
That the mainstream media is liberal biased is not a reflection of congress or the alphabet bureaucracies. It is with both Republicans and Democrats that the government is what it is. The whole good-guy-bad-guy betwixt political parties is a ruse. For voting for the lesser of evils still begets evil.
As Mr. Brown used to jokingly ask us neighborhood kids, "Do you want a fat lip or a busted eyebrow?" That was not lost on me. From Democrats you get one, from Republicans you get the other. There are no winners and losers in politics for they (reps and dems) are two sides of the same coin. The only losers are the citizens, their prosperity and well-being which is mostly represented by the business community. The only winners are parasitical politicians and self-serving bureaucrats. ...Hot on their heels the mainstream media and academics catering to government crooks.
These observers have done a good job of identifying many of the symptoms afflicting the news media; unfortunately, they have failed to diagnose the disease that is causing them or to offer a cure for it.
Yes, and this article is no better. The fundamental problem with journalism is that people sucker for the con that it is or should be "objective."The business of journalism is attracting attention so people will see/hear commercial advertisements. That is, journalism is entertainment. The journalist's deadline is simply "the show must go on" (translated to print originally). "Man Bites Dog" is simply a mandate to be entertaining. And "No news is good news" is true because good news is seldom exciting enough to be news.
The consequences of the entertainment nature of journalism make a mockery of journalism's self-hyped "objectivity." Journalism's short deadlines make journalism superficial. Journalism's negativity combines with its superficiality to constitute anticonservatism.
What journalism calls "objective" is merely its own PC concensus. That consensus exists not only because of the aforementioned incentives to anticonservatism but because of the incentive to avoid flame wars with (other) people who "buy ink by the barrel."
Print journalism is part of the press, but then so are books and magazines. Broadcast journalism is regulated by the FCC and cannot be called part of the press.
And alot of those idealists seemed to get into either journalism, or activism. Sometimes both at once.
I don't listen to liars. There is no television in my house. If there were I would avoid corporate news shows. The solution is simple, tune them out.
In and of itself that is true. But when I am confronted by someone with a pop-culture mindset, someone who has been 'informed' by the corporate media, I look at them like they are nuts. I then inform them that they sound nuts and ask them where they get their information. When the answer is, invariably, ABCNNCBSet.al. I tell them straight out that those sources are unreliable, propagandist and misinformative.
It's a small step and is often poorly recieved but it is coupled with the fact that I am informed and can make mincemeat out of the 'information' they have. That is hard to ignore even if they choose not to admit it.
Your Indian/railroad analogy is a good one. It accurately reflects our current situation. However change is inevitable and always has been and always will be. What doesn't change is the underlying spiritual truth of things. The external world of the Indian has been radically transformed, those who hung on and endured those changes still know the spiritual truth of things. That inner world is as strong as ever. That knowledge in turn transforms the outer reality. Not back to the way things were but forward bringing truth from all times into the present and on into the future.
What I am trying to say is that the individual effort is not meaningless. Every individual who holds to the truth and refuses what is false has an effect that surpasses his personal circumstances. The faintest light reaches through all darkness and reduces it. But no amount of darkness can diminish any light in any way. Light radiates effortlessy from its source in all directions. Darkness does not. In the presence of light darkness can only be maintained by an effort to block it. Light can only be blocked by temporary artifices. More light illuminates those artifices. When the artifice is fully seen for what it is, a blockage of light not a source of it, it is soon ignored.
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