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To: Stoutcat

The Media Really Do Think We’re Idiots

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Shouldn’t this read.... The Media Really DOES Think We’re Idiots


11 posted on 11/07/2011 11:03:55 AM PST by Responsibility2nd (NO LIBS! This means liberals AND libertarians (same thing) NO LIBS!)
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To: Responsibility2nd
The Media Really Do Think We’re Idiots
Shouldn’t this read.... The Media Really DOES Think We’re Idiots
To the extent that you point out the unity of journalism, you are of course correct.

But of course the term "media" is actually a reference to the fact that TV, movies, and newspapers all tend liberal. But then, unless you think censorship of fiction is a valid concept under the First Amendment the criticism should be directed at nonfiction publishing, which includes TV news as well as newspapers, and therefore is still multimedia but should just be referred to as "journalism."

And even at that, it has to be said that the First Amendment gives no legitimate scope for legal action against journalism for selecting negative, sensational stories over more mundane truth. Where do you get off telling me that I have to talk about Paula Jones' charges and Clinton's having settled the case for substantial money, rather than just hyping the allegations against Herman Cain? Don't I have editorial control? I can't talk about everything, after all . . .

As long as "Half the truth can be a great lie," there is no way to enforce fairness and certainly no way to enforce objectivity. The only thing that is legitimate is competition. But then, journalism rejects the idea of legitimate competition against themselves. The engine which created the monopoly in journalism is the telegraph and the wire service. The Associated Press is the exemplar of the genre, and I like to use its name in criticism of wire services.

The problem (as you suggest) is that we have a free press but not free presses. The press is free to do its thing, but the press is not independent presses but an associated press. If you want to run a press (other than a local rag) you have to have a newswire to give you information from around the globe. And that costs dough, and requires that you sell that content to your audience in order to recoup your investment. But in selling the association's content, you have to sell the conceit of journalistic objectivity, and you thereby estop yourself from competing on the basis of accuracy. If "all journalists are objective" (what a fabulous conceit! How can they know that they are objective?), any competition on the basis of accuracy is illegitimate.

This is what excludes conservative journalism. The wire services unify all the newspapers (sure, there are various editorial page tendencies, but . . . ) and the net result is the self interest of journalism reified. Conservatism says,

From Theodore Roosevelt's 1910 speech at the Sarbonne:
There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities - all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The rôle is easy; there is none easier, save only the rôle of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

OTOH journalists (and, not so coincidentally, the "liberal" politicians and labor unionists and other professions likely to be Democrat) are critics and not doers. They are able to convince many that criticism and second guessing is on a higher level than actually making decisions on a timely basis, before the consequences of those decisions have revealed themselves. But in practice what you get when you put a critic in charge is failure and scapegoating. And demands that they be judged on good intentions rather than on the bottom line. The all-too-familiar problem being that the journalist/liberal politician/unionist has the biggest megaphone around and does a great job of blaming opponents when things go wrong, or don't get done.

13 posted on 11/07/2011 2:47:27 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (DRAFT PALIN)
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