pbrower2a
Atlas Star
Posts: 26,875
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« on: December 24, 2016, 01:47:28 PM » |
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The main thing is we don't agree on the basis of validity of the news articles we read. I place some faith in the NYT, CNN, CBS, ABC, news media, reporting, the Atlantic, Fox News, and the like. I have very little faith in Breitbart News or InfoWars, or Alex Jones' show. I think you place far more credence in these outlets and thus, we can't really come to terms about debating the issues of the day.
A bare minimum for journalism is fact-checking, an unglamorous activity, but one that prevents news outlets from falling for conspiracy stories, spin, hoaxes, and outright propaganda. A second minimum is that the journalist must not become the news. Obviously if someone hostile to the reporting of a story assaults a journalist for doing his job, then that is a legitimate news story; thus if a Klan-sympathizer during the Civil Rights struggle beats up a photo-journalist, then the attack is legitimate news. Third, journalists must report without bias -- and their organizations must allow the report to reach the airwaves or newspaper without concern for political consequences. FoX News fails at that much as Pravda did in its day. FoX reporting is clean enough; it's when FoX decides that it can twist a story to hurt or harm one side of the political spectrum that FoX News becomes shaky in its credibility. Fourth, news media must avoid creating the news, as by sponsoring political causes. Yes, the media can expose dirty tricks with impunity (or had better have the implicit right to do so) because the dirty tricks can hurt democracy.
The most reliable news source remains the AP wires which cannot be spun. Speed in reporting prevents deceit by a reporter.
Journalism has been greatly debased in recent years. Computers, mini-cams, and the Internet make it easy for people to have the technological proficiency of NBC News in the early 1960s (I pick NBC because it had color in contrast to ABC and CBS in the early 1960s). But we are not getting the Edgar R. Murrow types.
Multitudes are doing journalism. Most of those multitudes are doing shoddy journalism, and not due to any technological inadequacy.
Educated middle-class professionals are above all else rational. It is their rationality that allowed them to get into and graduate from first-rate or even second-rate institutions. Rationality may not preclude bias, but it can allow one to avoid troubles that less-rational people get into.... and get oneself out of trouble should one make an honest error. Racial and religious bigotry, anti-feminism, ambiguous (and likely deceptive) slogans, and rhetorical violence are obvious warning signals to people who find that their rationality has gotten them into elevated positions. One need not be so rational to do machine-paced work.
The various constituencies of the Right have their own version of political correctness. "Taxes are too high". "Wages need to be cut". "Who needs broad learning when technical proficiency is adequate for making a good living?" "Drill, baby, drill!"
Some old manifestations of liberal political-correctness have been discredited, like the old idea that crime is the result of economic hardships and lack of opportunity instead of character. Crime is often a one-perpetrator wave; catch one burglar or mugger, and the crime wave stops. That view that economic hardship creates crime faults the good people who live in bad neighborhoods. We will have new manifestations of a right-wing PC, and they too can implode to the detriment of the Right.
But deeds have results. I predict that the Trump ideology will attempt to curtail human rights and create a Constitutional disaster. His economics are likely to make even more of a mess than the good that they do. His statements of racial and religious bigotry will not be forgotten unless he does theatrical renunciation, which will show that he was either a cynic, a fool, or a liar. I have serious questions of his character.
One can choose one/s opinions, but one cannot choose the truth. |
