How Mainstream Media Destroys Democracy, What To Do About It

One of the most powerful media figures has blamed the newspapers downward plunge in circulation and profits on the fact that they have forfeited the trust and loyalty of their readers. But I think his basis for saying this is misplaced or incomplete.

According to Rupert Murdoch, who offered this diagnosis of newspaper troubles, the problem lies in the "complacency and condescension" in some newsrooms. He says, "The complacency stems from having enjoyed a monopoly - and now finding they have to compete for an audience they once took for granted. The condescension that many show their readers is an even bigger problem. It takes no special genius to point out that if you are contemptuous of your customers, you are going to have a hard time getting them to buy your product. Newspapers are no exception."

I'd say the problem runs far deeper than that. The problem is that the mainstream media has now become a lapdog and bootlicker of the Obama administration and during the campaign, and now during the transition, have demonstrated they are simply cheerleaders and propagandists for President-elect Barack Obama and have totally abandoned journalistic standards calling for fair and balanced reporting on Mr. Obama and on other national issues. In my view, the mainstream media pulled off a virtual coup by defrauding the voters into accepting an unqualified candidate who was never vetted properly.

The mainstream media continues to amaze even its most critical observers by going ever deeper into the journalistic sewer. I keep thinking the mainstream media can't get any worse, but it continues to prove I'm wrong.

Mr. Obama is now in the early stages of his transition period, and already the front-page of Newsweek portrays him as Lincoln, Time magazine shows him as FDR, The New York Times calls the young voters the "O-generation," and ABC is putting out a DVD called "Yes, We Can: the Barack Obama Story." Howard Kurtz, media writer of the Washington Post, described this all as a "giddy sense of boosterism." He should have added an unprofessional and biased slant on the news. Perhaps he might have also said the mainstream media have been drinking too much Obama Kool-Aid, leading to the Obamania Derangement Syndrome.

Charles Krauthammer, the great columnist, said after reading one Newsweek cover story on Mr. Obama, that it would not have any adjectives left over to describe the Second Coming. During the campaign and transition the mainstream media have done everything but officially declare Mr. Obama a Messiah, Savior and the Second Coming. They only imply that, and their coverage has come close to canonizing and deifying the Great One. There is no limit to the extent the mainstream media will now go to push their Chosen One, and if the present trend continues he will be declared a saint for his inaugural address.

Worse than all that is the mainstream media makes no pretense of being fair and balanced. As they wallow in their journalistic malpractice, they have no shame. Even literature prepared by the Obama campaign or the Obama administration would not be so over the edge in selling Mr. Obama, as they would fear readers might suspect that what is too good to be true probably is - a fraud. The mainstream media has abandoned all journalistic principles and shows no shame while they produce an endless flow of biased, dishonest and fraudulent journalism.

In my view, it's not the mainstream newspapers' complacency and condescension that caused the loss of trust and confidence; it's their fundamental dishonesty and failure to deliver the fair and balanced reporting and information the public wants. The public doesn't want to read Pravda or the writing, raving and ranting of a Joseph Goebbels-type that tells the big lie to make his points. That's where we are, and that's what is dooming the mainstream media.

I would say the public has moved even beyond a position of distrust toward the mainstream media. I for one see it as a force more dangerous to democracy than terrorism. We have been successful in fighting terrorism and keeping the homeland secure. But the mainstream media is not under control and in fact is getting worse by the day and consequently more damaging to democracy by the day. So there is not only distrust of the mainstream media but also positive and intense hatred for what it is and what it is doing.

The bottom line is that readers simply don't trust the mainstream media, and that's fatal to any media outlet. Mr. Murdoch got both sides of the trust issue right. First, he said the public has loss trust in the media. Second, he also mentions the other half of the trust issue, when he said the editors and reporters don't trust their readers. Mr. Murdoch wrote, "A recent American study reported that many editors and reporters simply do not trust their readers to make good decisions. Let's be clear about what this means. This is a polite way of saying that these editors and reporters think their readers are too stupid to think for themselves."

Mr. Murdoch does make one critically important point by explaining some of the impact of all the new technology and sources of news that we now have. Mr. Murdoch said, "It used to be that a handful of editors could decide what was news - and what was not. They acted as sort of demigods. If they ran a story, it became news. If they ignored an event, it never happened. Today, editors are losing this power. The Internet, for example, provides access to thousands of new sources that cover things an editor might ignore. And if you aren't satisfied with that, you can start up your own blog and cover and comment on the news yourself. Journalists like to think of themselves as watchdogs, but they haven't always responded well when the public calls them to account."

I know how arrogant and indifferent to criticism the mainstream media can be. I've been involved in several conferences with Philadelphia Inquirer editors about its anti-Israel bias, and afterward, I found I would have been better off talking to the wall, which might have been more receptive and I know would have had more sense. This was under the Knight-Ridder management teams, but from the new owner's product I see only marginal improvement. This means that the public can avoid the toxic journalism of the mainstream media simply by avoiding it, boycotting it and finding alternatives they can trust.

The mainstream media malpractice during and after the election represents the greatest malfeasance and media failure in history and if not counteracted has the potential to inflict grievous and even fatal damage to the greatest democracy in the history of the world.

If that's not bad enough, it gets worse. The public doesn't seem to care. Sen. McCain tried to make media malpractice into a campaign issue, but that had no traction. Here's the way Stephen Spruiell explained it, writing in the National Review (Dec. 1) in an article entitled "Going Mainstream: The Right Faces New Media Realities":

"The McCain campaign complained mightily about these and other instances of media malpractice, and the public shrugged. In perhaps the most blatant case of overt bias against McCain, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller said that each complaint from the McCain campaign made him want to 'find the toughest McCain story we've got and put it on the front page, just to show them they can't get away with it.'

"When the top newspaper editor in the country is openly discussing his strategy to attack the Republican nominee through the news pages and almost no one cares, complaining about bias just isn't going to accomplish much.

"The mainstream media have staked their future on Obama; that was evident in the way they conducted themselves during the campaign. Economic and political forces are driving notionally objective news organizations toward overt partisanship. Now is the time to invest in conservative alternatives and work to secure mainstream reception for conservative voices. The media game has changed and have to get better at playing it."

As long as so many people rely on the mainstream media for their news and information, Republicans and conservatives are going to operate under a serious handicap. So there are some remedies.

First, the Republicans have to do more to directly communicate news and information to supporters, potential supporters and everyone else. This is much more practicable with the advent of the Internet, e-mail, blogs and all the rest. In an interesting article, Patrick Ruffini of the National Review (Dec. 1), in an article titled "Roots of Defeat: Let Us Study And Emulate The Left's Online Tactics," there is an explanation of how the Democrats used the Internet, how they have done a better job of using the new technology, and how the Republicans have to catch up and surpass them in the use of the Internet and the new technology.

The Republicans don't do a good job of getting the word out. I don't think I received one good document or e-mail from the Republican National Committee setting forth material designed to help sell their view and refute their opponent's arguments.

Second, the pubic has to be mobilized to effectively criticize mainstream media bias by all means available, such as letters-to-the-editor, calls to talk shows and support of groups that fight media bias.

Third, the public has to start inflicting economic damage on the dishonest, fraudulent, and biased mainstream media. That means individual and organized boycotts of the mainstream media, canceling subscriptions and discontinuing advertising in them.

Fourth, the public has to start going to alternative media outlets that can be trusted to give the whole picture. There are hundreds of such sites and here are some good places to start:

* Newspapers: The Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, The Washington Times, The New York Post, and The Philadelphia Bulletin. One of the best conservative papers, The New York Sun, recently folded. So if you want these alternative voices to survive, you better support them.

* Broadcasters: Fox News Network and WNTP-AM (990) both around the clock. The 990 lineup includes Bill Bennett, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Savage, Mark Levine, and Mike Gallagher, many of which have excellent Web sites of their own. Also Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh on WPHT-AM (1210).

Fifth, support the Republican Party and other voices of opposition that provide the kind of information that the mainstream media ignores. You have to put your money where your mouth is to assure that the public gets both sides of the ongoing political controversies.

Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@ thebulletin.us.

Assuming that FR lacks the resources to mount its own Supreme Court case, can we not at least submit a "Friend of the Court" brief raising the above points?

Is that needed? McCain-Feingold was rendered moot by Hussein by his credit-card overseas fundraising plot and his switch from public limits to unlimited private without losing a stroke. Perhaps our best tactic is to assume it never was a law, which is what our opposition does. Whenever we engage in a fight with the opposition and agree to use logic and the rule of law, we start out handicapped. The old Soviet Union was notorious for that tactics: "What's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable."

As far as the threat of the fairness doctrine, a similar tactic may be our best strategy. Simply ignore it. We have the technology and the expertise to go around them. Offshore servers, satellite radio, etc. They can't put us all in jail. With respect to the internet, a recent survey showed more people would prefer to give up their TV's than their internet connections. Government may have waited too late to try and control the internet. It's now Too Big to Fail.

"Civil disobedience" is a far more credible threat from the marginalized than from the comfortable. We just sell our stocks - and then FDR junior just uses the resulting disruption as justification for why the old ways just don't work anymore, and we need to be more like the Soviet Union than Russia is. Everything will be Bush's fault, in the same way that everything was "Hoover's fault" when the Depression hung on for Roosevelt's first two terms.
Let's face it, satellite radio is a ghetto in the sense that its receivers are very far from ubiquitous. I for one can't recall having seen one in the wild. We need Talk Radio to be accessible on mainstream receivers that everyone can casually tune in. And certainly the "Fairness" Doctrine was imposed before and, having never been declared unconstitutional, will always hang over our heads as something the socialists will make seem to be a legitimate option. Chuck Schumer's fascist comment comparing conservatism to pornography needs to be slapped down. Obama's approach will be to attack the stations carrying Talk Radio with the same sort of "community action" that did so much for the country by "eliminating redlining" so that banks had to lend money out without serious expectation of repayment. We will need serious unity to face that threat down.
The solution I propose is to go on the attack against the Fairness Doctrine before Obama and Schumer can even get off the ground. A SCOTUS holding that the government cannot enforce its opinion of "objectivity" on the public discourse would IMHO carry that attack forward very well - and let's face it, the modicum of conservatism in the Kennedy Court (that's what it is, when Justice Kennedy's opinion is always the majority opinion), plus a very marginal toehold in the Senate (depending at best on people like John McCain and Olympia Snowe), is all the government we have any hope of influence in at the moment.
A SCOTUS holding that the government cannot enforce its opinion of "objectivity" on the public discourse would have the following implications:

protection of FR.

protection of Talk Radio on the AM band where it now flourishes.

weakening of the legitimacy of Homogeneous Journalism^TM, in the sense that the FCC would not have the authority to label broadcast journalism "in the public interest." And that, IMHO, would convert "the public airwaves" into property the ownership of which the government could not condition on "good behavior" of the broadcaster. Which sounds awful to Chuck Schumer. The present system is of course far worse.

I wholeheartedly agree we need to be in attack mode - always. The attacker sets the terms of the conflict.

I’m not so sure we can be marginalized if we adopt a civil disobedience theme. They do not control the information distribution system any more. Notice how the recent stock market swoon since election day was able to be blamed on Hussein’s election. Our side was proactive and effective in blaming it on him. We just have to have the stones to do it.

One of the first things that needs doing is ALL beltway “conservative” pundits need to be publicly executed, metaphorically speaking. They do nor nor have they ever represented conservatives. What they say or think is of no moment. I am convinced Rush Limbaugh moved to Florida to prevent the New York media culture from neutering him.

While I have reservation for the “law” and “courts,” a proactive move would at least be a form of attack.

And we need to attack every day all day.

While I have reservation for the “law” and “courts,” a proactive move would at least be a form of attack.

And we need to attack every day all day.

The courts are the only place where facts and logic are supposed to prevail. Everyone else is openly political; at least the courts are embarrassed by facts and logic when they ignore them.
I am not urging a remedy nearly as radical as the ill which I propose that the court address. You and I know how destructive Homogenous Journalism is. And I think that a lawyer could point to a Supreme Court case in which the linchpin of Homogeneous Journalism - the AP - has been found to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. But I propose no more of a remedy than that the Court state that the government has no authority to treat Punch Sulzberger as the establishment, but must respect the First Amendment rights of Jim Robinson and Rush Limbaugh on exactly the same basis that it respects the First Amendment rights of Punch Sulzberger.
That remedy would entirely delegitimate McCain-Feingold because that "law" would deprive you and me of rights which it would respect in the case of Homogeneous Journalism. It codifies the imposture of Homogenous Journalism that only it is "the press." "Freedom of the press" is a right of the people, not of the unborn (as of the writing of the First Amendment) Associated Press and Punch Sulzberger.

To the extent it would showcase a logical argument, I think taking it to court could a good idea.

But I'm not so sanguine about a decision that would be favorable to us. I don't know if that would happen, but the risk is there. If we pick a court fight, we better be sure we would win, otherwise we're worse off.

I must disclose that my opinion of "The Law" has become a bit more jaded over the past 2 1/2 years after being exposed intimately to North Carolina's "judicial system" and its behavior during the Duke Lacrosse Frame. And this from a native of Louisiana, once the gold standard for political/legal corruption.

All this is about power. Raw power. Homogeneous Journalism™ once had it all. The MSM easily had as much power as elected government at any level. Then they became an extension and enabler of government once they agreed to share power. Sort of a 'peaceful coexistence.'

And now they're facing a degradation of that power.

I think we have the technological tools to debate them and win. What is lacking is the conviction of most of our conservative "leaders."

my opinion of "The Law" has become a bit more jaded over the past 2 1/2 years after being exposed intimately to North Carolina's "judicial system" and its behavior during the Duke Lacrosse Frame.

Certainly understandable - but as you well know, that was as much a riot by Homogeneous Journalism as it was anything else. That was journalism acting in its capacity as the Establishment, passing judgement irrespective of the facts of the "case." That is a perfect example of abuse of power on the part of the Nifong - and his power derived directly from his relationship to Establishment Journalism.
We-the-people need SCOTUS to declare that freedom of the press is an elementary right of the people - at root, freedom of the press is the right of any person not merely to voice his opinion but to spend money and use technology to promote his opinion. Under the Constitution the government does not have right to oppose the right of any person to promote his own opinion in competition with any Establishment.

Homogeneous Journalism™ once had it all. The MSM easily had as much power as elected government at any level. Then they became an extension and enabler of government once they agreed to share power. Sort of a 'peaceful coexistence.'

My take on the relation between Establishment Journalism and the government is that journalism's inherent motive is to attract attention and to be considered important. Failure to do that is financial failure and political failure, and what other motive would remain to journalism apart from success in at least one or the other of those things?
Given that motive, and given the means at journalism's disposal, what would you expect journalism to do? I put it to you that you should expect journalism to criticize all the businessmen, and the police and military, who might in the natural order of things be considered more important than journalism.
Now consider the motive of the politician - to promote in the people the idea of his importance and competence. The politician who goes along with journalism in criticizing and second guessing the people who have responsibility for getting things done and working to a bottom line instantly has an ally in journalism. The politician who opposes unfair treatment of businessmen has an instant enemy in journalism. So when the Republican conservative is in power, absolute "it happened on his watch" responsibility is the rule. And when a Democrat is in power, his "good intentions" - and certainly not his incompetence - are all that matter.
To me, that line of reasoning has a lot of explanatory power.

To me, that line of reasoning has a lot of explanatory power.

I agree. Additionally, 'journalism' has attracted the largest concentration of Marxists - outside academia - that can be found today. Reading all the comments and blogs and such from those laid off is instructive. Most of them haven't a clue as to how wealth is created. Nor do they care. They've been indoctrinated into believing what they do is a calling and their existence should be guaranteed by the Collective.

And every one of them are union types.

The DukeLax Frame exposed how the Durham Power Structure and the local media partnered to obtain a political outcome. Their "legal system" was not sufficiently sturdy to withstand the strain. It is on a smaller scale what is ongoing nationally with the Media as an active partner with the Collective.

With respect to the SCOTUS, I ask why must we go hat in hand to them to ratify a right which we were born with? Do we not empower them to control us when we ask their permission to do something we already can do? I say we just speak out as we please and defy them to come after us.

It's similar to the Heller case. I'm glad we won it, but what if we hadn't? Why give them the power, I ask?

Perhaps I'm too belligerent, but I think it worth noting.

Perhaps I'm too belligerent, but I think it worth noting.

It is a question to be respected. But the Heller case did succeed (tho some would argue for the flat-out abolition of gun registration, rather than merely "shall issue").
And in any event we do not face the same risk in seeking a rehearing of McConnell v. FEC for the simple reason that we already bear the burden of the adverse result of McConnell. And, whether you think it prudent or not, the Republican Party (or some subset thereof) is even now bringing the issue raised by McConnell v. FEC back into the courts. So in that sense the issue is out of our hands anyway, and the question is now whether the courts will burden us with yet another rebuff to our peading for relief from McCain-Feingold.
And as SCOTUS is constituted following the resignation of O'Connor, Justice Kennedy - in the minority in the court's erroneous 5-4 holding against McConnell in McConnell v. FEC - is now dominant. So there is lively hope of success in that suit. But even if SCOTUS were to overturn McConnell, that would hardly guarantee that SCOTUS would issue a broad enough ruling to protect the people's "freedom of the press" rights to FReep and to have Talk Radio be on an equal footing before the law with "objective journalism." So I suggest a "friend of the court" filing along the lines of my #54 which would suggest to the Court (i.e., to Justice Kennedy) a rationale by which the Court could settle the issue in a way which is readily defensible (far more so than Heller, which required a patient Justice Scalia to give the country a history lesson on the meaning of the language used in the Second Amendment) and congenial to the majority now sitting on the Court (again, essentially Justice Kennedy).
In summary, that rationale is that:

"freedom of the press" is a right of all the people, and each of them individually - and not limited to a subset thereof as yet unborn in the framing era.

"freedom of the press" is not limited to the technology of printing circa 1792. It includes the high speed printing press developed since the 1830s - and it includes telegraphy, telephony, movies, radio, Xerography and television developed much later, the PC Internet today, and whatever communication technology may extend those capabilities in as yet unexplored ways in the future. If anyone can use the Internet and put up web sites, everyone (who can afford it) can put up web sites.

The government does not get to elevate some people to privileged status officially recognized as "objective" or any other title of nobility. Anyone can claim to be objective - but no one may be obliged to defer to any such claim. People who make such claim do not, no matter what the weight of their purses or the printing presses or other communications equipment they may own or even the number of others similarly situated who may be in concert with them in making such claim, thereby attain even to the credibility of witnesses under oath. Let alone to that of the verdict of a jury. They are still only people with no authority over their fellow citizens, and no part of the government.
Accordingly any law (and McCain-Feingold in particular) which purports to restrict the right of the people, or any one of them, to spend money to propagate opinions (and most unambiguously, political or religious opinions explicitly mentioned in clauses of the First Amendment) is no law enforceable under constitutional government. Or else, the exceptions in McCain-Feingold for "the press" apply to all the people and not to a privileged subset of them.
That would be the limit the holding which the case brought against the FEC by the Republican Party would immediately reach - but it would be a shot across the bow from SCOTUS delegitimating any threat to Talk Radio or Free Republic. I think it could be worth serious investigation as to the possibility of using the Republican Party's suit to ask SCOTUS for just such a ruling.

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