"The difference
between burlesque and the newspapers is that the former never pretended to be
performing a public service by exposure." -I.F. Stone, 1952
There is no such thing as
an objective media. This is a lesson I learned a lot time ago when writing for
and being part of the underground media movement.
Any media subject to
advertising is automatically biased.
America has the best press
you can buy, as long as you can afford to pay for it.
A free press is always an
out-of-control press by its very nature, and the theory of having no overseer
to regulate it, is that somehow with all the conflicting accounts, the truth
emerge.
This, of course, assumes
that the audience is intelligent enough to look for alternative opinions and
not satisfied with accepting what it wants to hear in the first place.
When a majority of major
media agree on anything, you have to be suspicious, especially in an era when
nearly all major media is owned and controlled by a few individuals.
Free press stops being free
when these individuals decide to take one side over another, and the control
that we all so fear might come from government, comes from these puppet masters
behind the scenes, who want to direct public opinion down a particular pathway.
This is largely what we are
seeing now from major media, an unspoken agreement for an unholy alliance aimed
largely at bringing down a government these individuals dislike.
American Media has always
been deeply involved with politics a kind of strange dance and which media
influences policy and policy reflects media's wishes and wants.
People talk about yellow journalism
and when Hearst created his own war that made the United States into an
international power.
This is nothing new
headlines and propaganda go hand-in-hand.
What makes journalism great
over time are those people who are the exception to the rule, a few brave
people and organizations that have risen above the muckraking to become truly
inspired.
This is why the Washington
Post today is such a tragedy because it has -- to quote and Indiana Jones film --
fallen away from the true faith and become just more muck. It has ceased
serving a public use and has become an instrument of destruction.
At a time when media is
largely controlled by very few the concept of Free Press ceases to exist and
what we get our propaganda machines designed to steer public opinion in certain
directions.
Trump calls this fake news
but in reality it is bad journalism, biased reporting designed to benefit a
particular group or ideology. Individual stories may have validity but when you
look at the pattern, the constant drumbeat that media like New York Times CNN
and the Washington Post gives us, we begin realize there is an agenda in this
case it appears that they want to bring down the current government.
Part of this has to do with
its own frustration its inability before the election to steer voters into a
particular outcome. This failure showed how less influential media has become
now that everybody has access to their own media outlets.
I keep thinking I was a
scene in The Godfather where the mafia don talked about controlling its own
press ie we have people on the payroll.
To Greater extent this is
what the Democrats are doing now to use liberal media to make up for what they
could not do at the ballot box.
Since no one by the nature
of media and journalism actually oversees what media does, we can do just about
anything they just about anything and get away with it.
Trump can't challenge media
without accusations of censorship. Media even those that are reasonably fair
sides with slanted media to defend the concept of Free Press, a concept that is
really not a reality
There is no such thing as a
free press Just an Illusion
There are individuals who might fight for
objectivity in each newsroom but they are clearly subject to editorial review
and in the end management controls the medium and the message
"I am not an editor of
a newspaper and shall always try to do right and be good so that God will not
make me one." -Mark Twain