Posted on 11/29/2008 4:35:52 AM PST by abb
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003917721
Suburban Detroit Daily Cutting Back to Four Days a Week
The MSM suffers because they don't understand Alvin Toffler's very idea of de-massifying the media that modern communications causes. Why wait for the newspaper or network news broadcasts that come once a day when you can get your news around the clock with 24 hour news channels and the Internet? And from a lot more sources than the MSM can ever get?
“Fox said recently that the army did not exist.”
You mean the Obama campaign lied? Oh, I’m so disappointed!
Liars don't come cheap—in more ways than one..
I make a motion we go pro-active...
And put every lying one of them out-of-business!
1. Cancel all subscriptions to maintstream print media; Likewise the time and attention given to MSM broadcasters.
2. Write to the corporate execs and board members of all the major print consortiums (Cox, Ganett, etc...) --and major MSM networks -- explaining your moral decision to exclude their presence from our homes - and our dollars from their cash registers.
3. Communicate directly and succinctly with all advertisers and sponsors announcing your choice to dismiss their print/broadcasting hosts from our homes and consumer spending.... and furthermore -- that the sponsors' products and services will soon follow suit!
Again...
JMHO....
Its service as a pro-Democrat propaganda machine in the 2008 election is sufficient in itself to induce all decent and honest people to call for its downfall, but this dangerous, mendacious propaganda machine and its so-called "journalists" have been distorting, censoring, and fabrication information reaching the public--and consequently the electorate--for years, contemptibly disregarding the axiom that a truthfully informed electorate is essential to a representative government.
These people have and deserve the utter contempt of decent, truthful people everywhere and for all time.
They have thrown over their unregulated constitutional role to serve ideology.
"They" have no constitutional role.There is only "us" - the people - and the various jurisdictions of government.
The particular people who own presses and/or broadcast stations and/or cable channels style themselves "the press," and style their employees "objective journalists." Guess what, I can form an organization - many people have - and I can install myself as the "Great and Powerful Grand Imperial Wizard" in that organization.
Or maybe I will just call myself "Speech." Then I will have (in my own conceit, at least) a constitutional role in the government, just like "the press" does. And nobody else should be allowed to speak about politics during an election year but me. Just as, according to McCain (RINO,Big Media) and Feingold (D,Big media), "the press" has rights to publish about politics during election season but you and I do not. Do you see how stupid it is to assign a "constitutional role" to anyone, or any organization, on the basis of what they call themselves?
The Federalists and the Anti-Federalists fought to a near-stalemate in the argument over ratifying the Constitution. In order to carry the day, the Federalists agreed to the Anti-Federalist demand for a bill of rights in the Constitution. The Federalists did not oppose the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights; to the contrary they held that the Constitution, without amendments, preserved all the rights in the Bill of Rights, by not granting the government the power to violate those rights - and that codifying a Bill of Rights would actually reduce the rights of the people by suggesting that the rights of the people were limited to those enumerated in the Bill of Rights. The fact that the rights of the people are not exhaustively enumerated in the first ten amendments to the Constitution is established jurisprudence; a liberal or a conservative member of SCOTUS would tell you that.
And it is my position that the people who style themselves "the press" do so to manipulate perception of the First Amendment precisely to the effect that the use of technology and money to promote political opinions is not a right of the people. If "freedom of the press" is not a right of the people as a whole (whether or not they currently own a printing press), then patently it is not a right at all but a privilege - and "the press" is a title of nobility in violation of Section 9 of Article 1 of the Constitution.
Likewise, anyone who questions the applicability of "freedom of the press" to broadcasting or web sites on the grounds is doing the same thing. It is a canard to claim that the Constitution is conservative; its prime directive is "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." And the inclusion, in Article 1 Section 8, of the phrase
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveriesputs paid to the notion that the Constitution as a whole does not contemplate and even embrace technological change. Clearly the Constitutions did not, and could not have, mandated the development of the specific communication technologies of the high speed press, the telegraph, Morse Code, photography, the telephone, radio, AM and FM audio radio, the mimeograph machine, television, the photocopier, the computer, the laser printer and the ink jet printer, the internet, or the world wide web. But it consciously promoted such developments without foreknowledge of their specific capabilities or their societal effects. And there is no warrant in the Constitution for the creation of a Establishment which is entitled to use communication technologies while "the people" are not.
And all too often they also flash network promo's at the bottom of the screen when you're trying to watch the five minutes of programming.
One of the things I want to concentrate on in my research is how and when “The Press” become an adjunct and enabler to government. We’ve talked extensively about the AP and the telegraph. This passage from “Air Time” was instructive.
AIR TIME: The Inside Story of CBS News - Gary Paul Gates
Harper & Row, New York, 1978
Chapter 10: On the Road and Other Beats
Pp. 171-172
One of the reasons members of the backup brigade were relatively content to settle for second-string status was that there was plenty of action in Washington for everyone. The nation’s capital was, without question, the news center of the world, and on any given day as many as twelve or fifteen stories were covered. But unfortunately, there would seldom be room for more than three of them on the CBS Evening News. Thus the real competition was focused on getting on the Cronkite show, where they could be seen and appreciated. And the target of these daily efforts was the Washington producer of the CBS Evening News, who in the early 1970’s was a scrappy, Cagneyesque Irishman from Boston name Ed Fouhy.
Fouhy was the liaison between the Washington correspondents and Les Midgley in New York, and each day, as reports came in from the various assignment points, he went to work on the telephone. He was an aggressive and effective lobbyist, who, in his conversations with New York, used the names and reputations of this top correspondents as weapons: “Mudd says the bill will pass this afternoon, and if it does… Rather has a tip that Nixon plans to… Kalb is convinced that this latest move by Kissinger means…” Then, having led off with his big guns, Fouhy would go on to promote other stories: “Morton has… Schoumaker is working on… Marya just called in from the Hill with…” Yet he was smart enough not to overdo it. In order to maintain his own credibility with Midgley and the other New York producers, Fouhy himself would downgrade certain Washington stories, and then he usually pinned the blame on New York. (“I did my best, Dan, but Midgely wouldn’t buy it.”) For the most part, however, he pushed to get as many Washington stories on as possible, and he succeeded in coaxing four or five film pieces into Midgely’s lineup, enough to make it a Washington-dominated broadcast.
To a large extent, it was this daily pressure from high-powered correspondents, as applied through Fouhy, that so often gave the Cronkite show such a heavy Washington tilt – heavier perhaps, than was warranted, even granting Washington’s preeminence as a source of news. It was also extremely easy and relatively inexpensive to bring film reports in from there, and the correspondents in Washington were generally more experienced and therefore more trustworthy – two factors that augured well for the “piece-of-cakeness” that Les Midgely hoped, each day, to achieve. But if the Washington bureau wielded as great deal of clout and influence, the ultimate power was still in New York; and largely for that reason there were a few correspondents who, while conceding that Washington was a livelier news town, preferred being attached to network headquarters.
I’m just now getting into vol 3 of the three volume company history of TIME, Inc. While he was alive, Henry Luce, the founder of the company, conspicuously leaned Republican. He and Roosevelt fought often. Of course Roosevelt was protected from too much criticism because of WWII.
TIME, Inc staffers regularly took leave to work in the Eisenhower administration and on various Republican campaigns.
JFK was very aware of TIME, Inc’s. power and courted their reporters and Luce very carefully.
“”They” have no constitutional role.”
As individual Americans they did.
Lincoln had the Associated Press in pocket during the Civil War. He gave them access to sources, and he gave them priority access to the telegraph offices. And all he wanted in return was that they let him censor their copy . . .The AP learned what not to say pretty quickly, and everyone was happy . . .
“The more things change...”
Another thing about Luce that was key was his wife, Claire Booth. She was a congresscritter and was appointed US Ambassador to Italy by Ike.
They made their bed, they should die in it.
http://www.courant.com/news/local/columnists/hc-rgreen1128.artnov28,0,2384883.column
Imagining, Assessing A Newspaper’s Demise
That's the first truly smart business decision I've seen from these publishers in a long time. Why print a paper on Saturday if few are going to read and buy it on that day? Stick to the positive cash flow days. People will still be in the habit of reading the paper, even those who think they need it 7 days a week.
Any federal funds to “the media” is public funding for the democrat party.
The failing NY and LA Times are merely propaganda outlets for the DNC. Readership is plummeting to the resultant loss of credubility.
Let the MSM die its richly deserved death.
And the very same people who want tax dollars spent on these corrupt entities, also want to end freedom of speech on Talk Radio and the Internet.
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