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To: bestintxas; LS; Anima Mundi; ebiskit; TenthAmendmentChampion; Obadiah; Mind-numbed Robot; A.Hun; ...
News is the first draft of history", or so we're told. In truth, the "news" reported by mass media seldom reflects the crucial events of the moment. News reports of the summer of 1914 treated the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand as a trivial Balkan matter, of little interest to anyone in the more civilized areas of Europe. Similarly, you'd look long and hard in the late spring of 1950 for any mention of a place called "Korea" in U.S. papers. "News", as the major media describes it, is almost without exception trivia.
Bingo!

"There's nothing more worthless than yesterday's newspaper."

That is another way of telling a reporter, "Meet your deadline!" But it captures the ineluctable superficiality which the deadline imposes on journalism.

But the deadline was not at all the same issue in the days before the telegraph and the Associated Press newswire. Previously most "newspapers" were weeklies - and some had no deadline at all, and the printer simply went to press when he was good and ready. It is the value, and the expense, of the AP newswire which puts the pressure on the newspaper to meet short deadlines.

The fact that Korea wasn't a major topic in journalism prior to the invasion which started the Korean War, and that journalism was determined that foreign policy not be considered a live issue in the 1992 election when such an emphasis would have favored the sitting Republican President and Reagan heir over the untested Arkansas governor, shows that journalism's vaunted "objectivity" is hype rather than reality.

That proof is unnecessary, considering that hyping your own objectivity is the very definition of subjectivity. And that applies to journalism even if journalists restrict their hype to a mutual admiration society approach rather than direct self-praise. After all, praising those who agree with you is no different than praising yourself. Just as criticizing those you disagree with, as Obama criticized the Founding Fathers, is a form of self-praise. The Right to Know


9 posted on 09/09/2009 3:42:37 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (SPENDING without representation is tyranny. To represent us you have to READ THE BILLS.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

BTTT


10 posted on 09/10/2009 2:58:06 AM PDT by E.G.C.
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion; bestintxas

Thanks for the ping; post.

OUTSTANDING article by J.R. Dunn!


11 posted on 09/10/2009 3:54:53 PM PDT by PGalt
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