[snooker]

I agree, reporting used to be akin to what a crime scene analyst does today. Observe and report the facts as best they could. Now we have all this 'save the ---- crap' and nothing is reported straight.

So what are we left with. Frankly I think that Rush Limbaugh will define the news REPORTING moving forward. Rush has a gift for seeing through the wilderness, like a trained reporter of fact from the old days. Rush also makes no bones about his viewpoint. You can easily calibrate what he says. It is far better to know exactly where the reporter stands, than it is for it to be cleverly hidden. Throw in the irreverent humor and you have the Rush powerhouse.

As far as today's journalists, they try hard to hide every aspect of their bias. Even going so far as to use different names for husband and wife. If everyone had a organization chart for the media, I would bet some heads would spin.

I think the Internet's free flow of information, archive search and the freerepublic forum is the future of news. Nothing brings clarity and sanity faster than discussing current events with a few friends.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I think that Rush Limbaugh will define the news REPORTING moving forward. Rush has a gift for seeing through the wilderness

I think that the issue is wisdom. Certainly a short deadline cannot aid in eliciting wisdom, and certainly emphasis on the short run and on the negative cannot aid in eliciting wisdom. Neither can emphasis on the unusual and neglect of the commonplace elicit wisdom.

In short I think that journalism is not a profession in which one would naturally look to find wise people. And yet, I think that it is impossible to be objective if you are not wise. Thus when journalists claim to be objective they are merely wise in their own conceit.

Rush engages in mock arrogance when he declares that he is the truth detector, and such like, but in fact he makes no bones about his own perspective and therefore is self-critical and more nearly objective than the "objective journalist" is. I think that Rush is more-than-usually wise, and I think that that can in principle be evaluated. The way to judge wisdom is to evaluate the correspondence between his past predictions and the way events subsequently turned out. In that analysis I think any conservative would stand head and shoulders above any "objective" journalist.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

the Internet's free flow of information, archive search and the freerepublic forum is the future of news. Nothing brings clarity and sanity faster than discussing current events with a few friends.

I agree - but not everyone is ready to do the work of thinking for themselves, and there will always be a market for the precooked liberal pablum.