Fairness Doctrine? Bring. It. On.
Howard Kurtz still doesn’t get it. His article For Every Story, An Online Epilogue makes repeated points about "the growing tide" of irresponsible bloggers picking on poor, hardworking non-partisan journalists. I don't know a single blogger who claims to be unbiased. So there's nothing to argue about on that point. Some attacks, even many, are personal? I'm not going to apologize for someone else; the world is full of cranks. And I'll stipulate that there are some responsible journalists in the world. But being unbiased isn’t considered a realistic goal anymore, unfortunately. As Linda Ellerbee said, “We report news, not truth. There is no such thing as objectivity. Any reporter who tells you he's objective is lying to you.” It's a conspiracy of shared values.
But I’m not being fair. As it turns out, many reporters are so gifted they know what will happen in advance. They can actually report the propaganda news before it happens!
The real scandal is Mr. Kurtz, and other media figures' stubborn refusal to understand why the rest of us are so fed up. He wraps up his article with this quote:
Barbara Stewart, the Boston Globe freelancer dropped over her story about a Canadian seal hunt that had not yet taken place, says she never meant to deceive anyone. She just never checked back to learn that the scheduled hunt had been delayed by bad weather.
"The whole situation, while resulting from an egregious, massive, stupid [screwup] on my part, unbelievable carelessness, was nevertheless not malicious fabrication as in: pretending I was there and deliberately making up a whole scene and attempting to pass it off," Stewart says by e-mail.
"It was stupider and more boring and more flat out dumb on my part. Quite dumb. Remarkably dumb. But not vicious and not really a scandal, for heaven's sake."
How is what Ms. Stewart did different from making up a whole scene and attempting to pass it off? What happened to reporting the facts, as they happen? Why aren’t journalists who claim to be responsible publicly, loudly, repeatedly, condemning this behavior? I guess it's too stupid and boring to merit their attention.
While it's true that some bloggers make personal attacks, it's a lot easier to gripe about that than to address the root problem. All that vitriol is coming from a public who has suspected for a long time, and now sees a growing body of evidence, that the media simply does not report the truth. Much of what is called news these days is simply propaganda. For example, if the media reported the truth, we wouldn't need Chrenkoff. As a few of us manage to break free from the liberal media Matrix, some Democrats want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine to slow or stop the exodus. Bring it on; this is a debate I'm going to enjoy. Conservatives will win either way. LexisNexis can easily prove that liberal views get more exposure than conservative views. And if it passes, which I doubt, we'll be all over you like white on rice. Conservative views will actually get more airtime than they do now. When all you have is a philosophy so bereft of logic and morals that you can be represented by the likes of Barbara Boxer, Michael Moore, and Ward Churchill, enforcing the Fairness Doctrine can only harm you.
Posted by Laura Curtis at April 19, 2005 10:43 PM
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Comments
| # April 20th, 2005 7:35 AM james |
what a bunch of winers. from one of the sites linked off of that fairness doctrine one:
... national safeguards for the electronic media in the U.S. Policies that ensure that digital media – including cable, satellite, and the broadband Internet – have an obligation to provide diverse viewpoints are more necessary than ever make no mistake about it, the dems are not about free speech or protecting your first amendment rights to speech. they only care about stifling others' viewpoints. the fairness doctrine was based on a theory of bandwidth scarcity - i.e. there are only so many broadcast tv and radio stations, the people allegedly own the airwaves, so those who have licenses are public stewards and they have an obligation to cover controversial issues and to do so in a fair way. it would never survive today given the 100's of channels available. but the sites above would love to forget the basis of it and instead tell people that the doctrine applied to all media and to insinuate that that it gave them rights of response. neither is true. these people would love to have a law providing that every republican campaign mailing must, as a matter of law, contain a response from them. sickening, really. |
| # April 20th, 2005 8:26 AM BVBigBro |
| Applying the fairness doctrine to blogs is truly stupid. Anyone cannot start their own over the air television or radio station on any frequency they want. Anyone can start a blog. The rationale for the fairness doctrine simply does not exist when applied to blogs. |
| # April 25th, 2005 3:46 PM delworthio |
| I think the danger is not in a conservative monopoly on news, but on deliberate misinformation generated from one source out to all the conservative outlets who will fall in behind the machine, no matter what the message. There is no denying this amounts to government propaganda. The vast majority of Fox News watchers think Iraq and Al Qaeda were linked. They also thought we actually found WMDs. The simple formula is 1. tell the people they are under attack, 2. denounce anyone opposed as being unpatriotic and aiding the enemy, 3. Rinse, 4. Repeat. Fairness is one thing. Manipulation is another. |
| # April 25th, 2005 5:32 PM james |
| the vast majority of people commenting on internet message board make their stats up as they go, delworthio.
|
| # April 26th, 2005 8:01 AM BrianH |
| delworthio,
"deliberate misinformation generated from one source out to all the conservative outlets who will fall in behind the machine" That tends to me mor of a tactic of the left. Most of the conservative sites I've read at least make an attempt to provide facts and reasoning behind their arguments. Most of the liberal sites spout a claim with no support, then build a wall of hatred on top of it. For example: 1. Ratzinger was forced to join the Hitler youth when he was 14. He soon found a way to get out of it, but he was actually a member. This is not in dispute. 2. The left takes this as: Ratzinger is a Nazi. They paint him as a willing member of the group. 3. Then Ratzinger, since he's been defined a Nazi, will bring back the inquisition and torture. Being head of the Doctrine of Faith is just fuel for this fire. 4. Then all sorts of mean, nasty things are attributed to the now Pope Benedict XVI. I used the Pope as an example because it's fairly recent. You can still check the recent threads on DU or KOS or any of the other big lefty sites if you care to verify this. If you look at threads about John Bolton, most of the judicial nominations, Social Security reform, etc. It's much the same thing. |
| # April 26th, 2005 12:51 PM delworthio |
| BrianH,
Please provide facts to back up what exactly the left is saying about the Pope (also please tell me exactly who the left is in this case) and in the meantime I will go look up the stats on Fox News watchers. If you know of similar stats that show the liberal bias of the corporate-held media, please share them. I am not interested in blogs as part of this discussion. I want to focus on broadcasting standards and how unchecked propaganda is not good for the country. |
| # April 26th, 2005 1:30 PM BrianH |
| delworthio,
The subject of this post was having the "fairness doctrine" apply to BLOGS, not the MSM. I referenced 2 blogs that are liberal sites that did have such posts. If you want to prove your allegation that FOX news viewers have the beliefs you attribute to them, go ahead. Please also give a similar poll on the number of CNN viewers who believe that President Bush knew about or sponsored the 9/11 attacks (AKA the Michael Moore version) or rigged the voting in Ohio or believe in "Global Warming". |
| # April 26th, 2005 1:30 PM Laura |
| Delworthio, people are generally not stupid, and they can be trusted to separate the wheat from the chaff. And quite a lot of what the MSM puts out is in fact chaff, and needs to be disputed. For example -
The fact is that there were links between Iraq and Al Queda. There was not, and to my knowledge the President and Repubs did not say there was, a link between Iraq and 9/11. If you know better on that point, provide a link. But the talking point started out being that there was no link between Iraq & 9/11, and it has devolved into the myth that Iraq was not a terror sponsoring state with ties to Al Queda, which is now treated as gospel. The fact is that we had every reason to believe Iraq had WMD because they saw to it that we believed that. The US, including Democrats, and everybody else believed that. It was simply not in dispute. But "Clinton lied - no one died" is so much easier to fit onto a sign you're carrying to a demonstration. The fact is that Bush did not say that Iraq was an imminent threat, as was reported over and over again, and has become an article of faith for the left. Spinsanity deconstructs some of the BS surrounding that allegation here. I could go on but why bother; you probably wouldn't believe it anyway. I can understand restricting freedom of speech to the point of not being able to shout "Fire!" in a theatre unless there actually is one. The Fairness Doctrine is a lot like McCain-Feingold; it will have the opposite effect of what it is supposed to do. And we don't need it to protect us from propaganda from either liberals or conservatives. |
| # April 26th, 2005 1:34 PM Laura |
| And one other thing - why is it that liberals get away with treating voters like children or idiots who need protection? What a condescending load of crap. |