The general decline in standards today

[LizzieMaine]

Broadcast journalism, particularly in those territories which permit editorialised broadcast journalism.

Every once in a while someone will point out that the most popular radio journalist in the Era was Walter Winchell, and claim that shows things haven't changed at all. But aside from the fact that for all his show-biz tricks, Winchell was capable of actual legitimate journalism when he put his mind to it -- he was the first American newsman to attack Hitler in the 1930s, and one of the first to challenge the tobacco industry in the 1950s -- they miss the point that there was only *one* Winchell, in a world otherwise populated by Shirers, Kaltenborns, Jordans,Searchingers, Severeids, Swings, Collingswoods, Hollenbecks, and Murrows. The situation today is precisely the opposite -- the clowns have taken over the circus, to the point where people consider actual comedians more legitimate sources of news than so-called reporters.

 

[Pompidou]

Every once in a while someone will point out that the most popular radio journalist in the Era was Walter Winchell, and claim that shows things haven't changed at all. But aside from the fact that for all his show-biz tricks, Winchell was capable of actual legitimate journalism when he put his mind to it -- he was the first American newsman to attack Hitler in the 1930s, and one of the first to challenge the tobacco industry in the 1950s -- they miss the point that there was only *one* Winchell, in a world otherwise populated by Shirers, Kaltenborns, Jordans,Searchingers, Severeids, Swings, Collingswoods, Hollenbecks, and Murrows. The situation today is precisely the opposite -- the clowns have taken over the circus, to the point where people consider actual comedians more legitimate sources of news than so-called reporters.

This is true. I get my news from Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report respectively. Sometimes I'll read the NY Times, but honestly, there isn't a single source of news I really believe I can trust. Every one is biased and most blatantly so. Wouldn't be right to elaborate. It forces me to get the same news from multiple sources to make sure I'm not being misled. That's assuming the news even covers anything worth reading. I try and follow politics and international at the very least.

 

[Gin&Tonics]

Broadcast journalism, particularly in those territories which permit editorialised broadcast journalism.

A great big
amen to this one!! Since I started my career in law enforcement, I got a huge eye opener about modern news media. Probably 98% of everything they print or broadcast is absolute, and please excuse my colorful term, bullshit. I don't even read the news anymore because they don't even try to be remotely accurate, and most of the time they're actively trying to twist the facts of the situation either to push their leftist agenda or to sensationalize something that really ought not to be.

 

[1961MJS]

Interestingly, I was reading an article in Forbes magazine yesterday about how there is quite a bit of polarization going on over there in Europe. The extremes are getting more populated with less left in the middle. I think we have seen this before about 70 years ago and we certainly don't need that kind of outcome once again.:eusa_doh:

Hi James

See Figure 1 in this article. I didn't even read the whole article, but I wanted to post Figure 1 showing how there is no left and right wings, but rather a circle with totalitarianism at the bottom of the circle with democracy at the top. Both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were directly controlled states, but got there from the opposite directions.

http://www.la-articles.org.uk/pc.htm

I AM worried about the Greek and Spanish defaults upsetting the Germans. Pretty soon they'll be drinking beer and singing, just so they don't start marching...

By the way, my dad's parents are ALL German Seeman, Brokamp, Mueller, and Schroeder.

 

[jamespowers]

A great big
amen to this one!! Since I started my career in law enforcement, I got a huge eye opener about modern news media. Probably 98% of everything they print or broadcast is absolute, and please excuse my colorful term, bullshit. I don't even read the news anymore because they don't even try to be remotely accurate, and most of the time they're actively trying to twist the facts of the situation either to push their leftist agenda or to sensationalize something that really ought not to be.

I found this out years ago when I began attending the local city council meetings. I would attend a meeting and then read about it in the newspaper and wonder: was I at this same meeting? It was complete pap and nothing of consequence got into the newspapers. You know, important things like tree ordinances that would limit what trees you could cut down on your property, wood smoke ordiances that would make it so you couldn't use your fireplace etc, etc. It was insane!

 

[John in Covina]

I found this out years ago when I began attending the local city council meetings. I would attend a meeting and then read about it in the newspaper and wonder: was I at this same meeting? It was complete pap and nothing of consequence got into the newspapers. You know, important things like tree ordinances that would limit what trees you could cut down on your property, wood smoke ordiances that would make it so you couldn't use your fireplace etc, etc. It was insane!

The tendency for government is to control and grow beaurocracy.
The tendency of politicians is to create sensationalism of a supposed problem, create victis and come to the rescue by awarding political patronedge jobs to their friends.
The media uses it's power to support politicians holding the same agenda by creating controversy and filtering the news.

 

[LizzieMaine]

What we have today is something that would have been impossible in the Era -- entire broadcasting organizations aligning themselves with specific political parties for the sole purpose of propagating a partisan point of view. Network A is the house organ of the This Party, and Network B is the house organ of the That Party. And all either network is giving you is talking points, not actual journalism.

This would have been impossible in the days of the Fairness Doctrine, when it was held that broadcasting was a public trust and that any partisan commentary required the presentation of free and equal time for all points of view. I worked in radio when that Doctrine was in force, and I was able to resist pressure from the owner of the station to slant the news to suit his poiltics -- he was the state chairman of the Elephant Party -- by citing its requirements. I would under no circumstances work in broadcast news in the modern era -- because I wouldn't have that protection as a journalist.

 

[jamespowers]

What we have today is something that would have been impossible in the Era -- entire broadcasting organizations aligning themselves with specific political parties for the sole purpose of propagating a partisan point of view. Network A is the house organ of the This Party, and Network B is the house organ of the That Party. And all either network is giving you is talking points, not actual journalism.

This would have been impossible in the days of the Fairness Doctrine, when it was held that broadcasting was a public trust and that any partisan commentary required the presentation of free and equal time for all points of view. I worked in radio when that Doctrine was in force, and I was able to resist pressure from the owner of the station to slant the news to suit his poiltics -- he was the state chairman of the Elephant Party -- by citing its requirements. I would under no circumstances work in broadcast news in the modern era -- because I wouldn't have that protection as a journalist.

You might want to read this book:

The journalists from back then were not all that impartial and took money, jobs and influenced people more than some might realize.
One thing I can say for journalisim now---you can't hide what you used to. There are just too many sources and outlets to keep quiet what was once kept quiet. That can be a good and bad thing but at least we have the choice about what to view aside from three major stations. They had far too much power before 1981 as the book mentions.

 

[1961MJS]

What we have today is something that would have been impossible in the Era -- entire broadcasting organizations aligning themselves with specific political parties for the sole purpose of propagating a partisan point of view....

Hi Lizzie

From my experience, that's not true of newspapers. My experience is the Springfield Illinois State Journal Register. It used to be a Morning (Democrat I think) newspaper and an afternoon (Republican) newspaper. One bought out the other and now the "news" is liberal and the opinion is only mostly liberal, but is has say 25% conservative writers. I could probably find it online, but it's not worth the trouble, basically Journal / Morning / Democrat and Register / Afternoon / Republican or some combination thereof. The whole party thing was well known and the papers were purchased with that in mind.

later

 

[ThesFlishThngs]

My ideal would be this - see, hear, or read a story, and come away knowing the basic, pertinent facts, and having no idea (or interest) which way the reported leans.

 

[jamespowers]

Hi Lizzie

From my experience, that's not true of newspapers. My experience is the Springfield Illinois State Journal Register. It used to be a Morning (Democrat I think) newspaper and an afternoon (Republican) newspaper. One bought out the other and now the "news" is liberal and the opinion is only mostly liberal, but is has say 25% conservative writers. I could probably find it online, but it's not worth the trouble, basically Journal / Morning / Democrat and Register / Afternoon / Republican or some combination thereof. The whole party thing was well known and the papers were purchased with that in mind.

later

We had the same thing here with the local Tribune and the Daily Review. They each came from a different point of view. Take your choice. Now they are owned by the same News group and they both stink.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I was referring to broadcasting, not newspapers -- newspapers have never been regulated as a public trust, and have always been as partisan as the man signing the checks wanted them to be, while until deregulation in the 1990s, broadcasters were required to operate in the public trust for all citizens, not as advocates of any particular point of view. We see the results before us.

A good example of how the Fairness Doctrine worked in practice was in 1954, when Ed Murrow produced his famous expose of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy -- it wasn't the first journalistic attack on McCarthy by any means, but it administered the coup de grace to McCarthy's influence. CBS was required, by law, to offer McCarthy exactly the same amount of time as Murrow had -- to be paid for by Murrow's own sponsor -- in which he could answer or rebut Murrow's comments in any manner in which he saw fit, and McCarthy was on the air the following week, in Murrow's own time slot, with Murrow's own production crew, allowed to state his piece with no filtering whatever, and the viewing audience was allowed to decide who they wanted to believe. *That* is "fair and balanced."

The same sort of thing was being done in radio in the Era even before the Fairness Doctrine was enacted into law in 1949. In 1944, Walter Winchell strongly denounced Representative Martin Dies, then chairman of the House Unamerican Activities Committee for having used his position to mount vendettas against his personal enemies (among them Winchell himself). Winchell then offered, with the cooperation of his sponsor and network, to turn his microphone over to Dies, in person, the following week, and allow him the entire uninterrupted broadcast period to answer the charges. Dies took him up on the challenge, and the American people got to hear both sides of the story, again, without manipulation or filtering. Even a muckraker like Winchell had higher standards than the broadcasters today.

 

[jamespowers]

Hi James

See Figure 1 in this article. I didn't even read the whole article, but I wanted to post Figure 1 showing how there is no left and right wings, but rather a circle with totalitarianism at the bottom of the circle with democracy at the top. Both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were directly controlled states, but got there from the opposite directions.

http://www.la-articles.org.uk/pc.htm

I AM worried about the Greek and Spanish defaults upsetting the Germans. Pretty soon they'll be drinking beer and singing, just so they don't start marching...

By the way, my dad's parents are ALL German Seeman, Brokamp, Mueller, and Schroeder.

I am not so much worried about the Germans because they are wary of their past and know better in some sense. I worry about Greece, France and Spain. Their austerity movements set up the same conditions that made a populist like Hitler come to power. Forbes mentioned this as well. Franco was not that long ago.

 

[Undertow]

My ideal would be this - see, hear, or read a story, and come away knowing the basic, pertinent facts, and having no idea (or interest) which way the reported leans.

tsk tsk, you silly idealist.

(Wouldn't that be nice? I mean just once being able to read an objective article and make a decision on your own. Anymore, you have to read both sides of the slant and try to read between both set of lines just to see what's even being "reported".)

 

[ThesFlishThngs]

I know. Silly, silly idealistic me. I might as well go to Paris and wait around for that midnight taxi....

 

[1961MJS]

I am not so much worried about the Germans because they are wary of their past and know better in some sense. I worry about Greece, France and Spain. Their austerity movements set up the same conditions that made a populist like Hitler come to power. Forbes mentioned this as well. Franco was not that long ago.

Hi James, I hope you're right, but it HAS been a while since ole Adolph bit the dust. The German problem probably won't be with the right this time around, they were decimated during the war, while the lefties worked in concentration camps in the "better" jobs i.e. there were still a bunch of them left at the end of the war.

I also agree about Greece, France, and Spain and their problems with austerity. I don't know my Spanish history except from a Napoleonic wars standpoint, how close to being Adolph Junior was Franco anyway? France doesn't worry me that much primarily because they don't have any history of that sort of thing (unless lead by a Corsican). The Greeks have a similar reputation. The Germans on the other hand, have a LOT of history of getting upset then getting in everyone else's business AND in this case, THEY believe (with good reason) that they're paying for the Greeks and Spanish partiy atmosphere.

Sorry about diving off topic, I mainly wanted to get the circular model out. I think it explains things VERY well.

Later

 

[Undertow]

Ah, leave the Germans alone. I think they've done right well for themselves this go around. America spawns more dictators than Germany, anyway. Besides, if I was worried about anyone, it would be the Greeks and only because they've had blatantly active forces trying to turn the conversation from economy to politics.

And on that note, I won't tread any farther down this political trail. International politics are still politics and you know what they do to people who talk politics on here? :croc:

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Before long the entire media will all be part of the Dismurdturntimwarn family, if it isn't already.
Disney + Murdoch + Turner +Time Warner

 

[1961MJS]

Before long the entire media will all be part of the Dismurdturntimwarn family, if it isn't already.
Disney + Murdoch + Turner +Time Warner

AND it will be irrelevant because WE get all of our news through chain emails...

Later

 

[jamespowers]

AND it will be irrelevant because WE get all of our news through chain emails...

Later

It would probably be better than a lot we get now.