Posted on 08/31/2002 12:51:29 PM PDT by NorCoGOP
I get my news exclusively from the Internet, where of course you can find anything. But I seem to remember that, with the proliferation of channels, you can find quite a bit of variety on the tube as well.
Why would anyone with an interest in the larger world settle for the tube? Are we who use this easily accessable resource - the Internet - so rare? If so, why?
I suspect that most people who don't do what we do are not really interested, that the networks give them what they want - entertainment and titillation.
I found an interesting site, National Cable & Telecommunications Association. This site has some cable TV deployment statistics.
In short, US Television Households (February, 2002) = 105,444,330. Cable Penetration of TV Households (February, 2002) = 69.4%. I can't say what this means in terms of people, but 30% of American homes don't get cable channels -- only broadcast TV, meaning only ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS.
If they get their evening news from these sources exclusively, then they are getting biased information.
-PJ
True.
And if they don't know it - and they probably don't - then they are being led around like sheep by the wealthy and powerful corporations which own the major media.
Well, what of it? If liberals are smart enough to own and run these major corporations then their views should prevail. I don't see that anyone who believes in capitalism has anything to complain about. Our system does a better job than any other of providing real information. Those who are too lazy, stupid, or unlucky to make use of its resources must suffer the consequences.
If you actually believe that statement there is no hope for you, then.
That's more than holding on to formed political beliefs, that's willful blindness. Even most Republicans abandoned Nixon when 'Watergate' blew open. It took awhile but they finally faced the truth, even if Nixon wouldn't.
Clinton was far more corrupted than Nixon ever dreamed of being, yet you claim you are still not be convinced that he is 'an unprincipled rogue'. That says a lot about where you are, politically.
No real hope that I can see. You probably really, truly believe that Gore 'won' and Bush 'stole' the election. Sad.
On Gore vs. Bush my position is that Bush won. The Supreme Court is the final arbiter of legal disputes in very, very close elections. They decided. Bush won.
On Clinton himself, 40 million dollars or so was spent in a politically poisonous atmosphere to try to find anything that could be used against the man. Nothing surfaced but a sleazy personal life. Impeachment charges were brought and failed. The Courts and the Congress decided. Clinton is clean. Get over it - unless you have one standard for Bush vs. Gore and another for Clinton.
It is true that - in both cases - new evidence could change the picture but, until then, the verdicts stand.
On the central point of the thread - the effect of bias in the major news media - I think I've made my position clear in my other posts.
Except that it used to be that the airwaves were public and the broadcasters were (and still are) licensed to use them. Part of that license agreement was that broadcasters had a certain responsibility to broadcast Public Service Announcements (PSA's), and the broadcasters used nightly news broadcasts as one of the was to satisfy that requirement.
If you're implying (in fact lauding the fact) that the broadcasters are knowingly abusing that trust in order to present one prevailing viewpoint, and also actively suppressing other viewpoints that they don't agree with, then they are violating the public trust that was given to them.
-PJ
Who's to say when the public trust has been abused in the case of news broadcasting? Do you want to see even more political correctness? An approved conservative, an approved liberal, an approved black, an approved woman, etc., etc.? There will then be zero news of value. Z-E-R-O! If conservatives want a better presentation of their views then they have to compete. They have to come up with shows that are highly rated and have to interest media owners or buy media companies. It's hard? So what?
These are not the tactics of organizations that portray themselves as objective. That's my complaint. With newspapers it's a different matter. But with licensed broadcasts on the public airwaves, they had a responsiblitiy to fairly present the news, and they don't.
-PJ
They are talking about TV journalists. They are level-headed; bias drips equally out of both sides of their mouths.
But there seems to be no better way to do these things. Conservative ideas do get a fair hearing on radio, on the Internet, in magazines. Even from the major media, on occasion.
Politics, economics, life. All are tough games. Lots of mistakes are made. Lots of things aren't fair. The only thing to do is keep fighting for what one believes is right. Remember there've been plenty of times when the roles were reversed. And there are plenty of Lefties out there who mirror your views - who feel it is they who don't get a fair hearing, and the game is rigged against them.
Personally, I think that the elite media in the broadcast medium are on the decline. Viewers are recognizing that they are not getting what they want and are going elsewhere, be it cable news, radio, or the internet. The popularity of books like Goldberg's Bias, Coulter's Slander, or McGowan's Coloring The News, indicates that the public is becoming aware. I credit this as the unintended consequence of eight years of spin, which may have been around for a longer time but was never made into such an unabashedly public sport until Davis' book Spin Cycle.
The thing to see is that the media appears to be unable to recognize it, or they are unwilling to do anything about it. Brokaw, Jennings, and Rather are getting old and will soon retire. Their replacements will not be the "authority figures" of the news that these anchors were (or believed themselves to be). The influence that the broadcasters have will diminish.
The rise of Fox News is telling. Prior to the 2000 election, it was rare to see a Democrat leader on Fox, although Fox would have done anything to get them as guests. The Democrat leaders, whether intentionally boycotting Fox or just marginalizing them as irrelevant, would go to CNN, MSNBC, or the broadcasters. That left Republican leaders to appear on Fox unchallenged. People started watching. After Bush won and Fox would get first crack at administration officials, Democrat leaders started appearing more and more, like when Feinstein made her first appearance on the channel. Even now, Hillary Clinton will not appear unless interviewed by Alan Colmes alone at an outside location. People see this and draw their own conclusions. But they see it on Fox News, not ABC, NBC, or CBS. When they do see someone like Clinton on Meet The Press, they see softball questions and absurd statements going unchallenged.
That is why I believe that the broadcast newscasts will diminish in influence.
-PJ
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