- Considering all the crime, horror, death, maiming, torture
and other general mayhem continuously being ordered up by American politicians
both inside and outside the Beltway these days, as well as the stupendous
lengths to which the corporate establishment mainstream media (MSM) go
to protect them, you,d think that reaction to the super tripe of journalistic
inaccuracy and propagandized pabulum constantly fed to the reader and viewer
would by now enable all knowledgeable news consumers to take the MSM's
sophomoric drivel and First Amendment transgressions in stride.
-
- It was during the Clinton administration and Rush Limbaugh's
rise to stardom that many news consumers began to detect editorial bias.
Recalling all the astonishing news events that never made it to the pages
of the product of our intrepid watchdogs of the American political State,
or whether such events had been delayed or otherwise actively downplayed,
a politically-informed reader begins to readily notice such journalistic
bias.
-
- Whether they are such events as the Downing Street Memo,
its relevance to President Bush's "16 words" in his January 2003
State of the Union address, the AIPAC spy scandal, or the Plame outing,
the case can easily be made that America and Americans have lost, and are
continuing to lose, any and all confidence in newspaper reporting and journalistic
professionalism. The Alternative Media [AM], the Internet, is increasingly
having a widening impact on the real news.
-
- There is now much evidence that the newspaper industry
is in trouble. There is the noticeable problem of declining circulation
and the more peripherally exposed instances of circulation fraud, the latter
perpetrated to artificially inflate readership to attract advertisers.
Less noticed is the reality of declining viewership as regards television
network news. The charge that TV network news has degenerated to an entertainment
medium is reinforced by reports that corporate networks are now regarding
news programs, formerly considered as public service broadcasts, as entertainment
and targeting specific consumer markets via these broadcasts to generate
advertising revenues thereby transforming gratis public service functions
into profit centers.
-
- Against such a backdrop, launched by talk radio's Rush
Limbaugh when invoking his charge of "liberal bias" in the news
media, authors and those with journalistic experience, such as Bernard
Goldberg, have built upon the "liberal bias" platform, which,
whether true or not, started people looking past the news and observing
the politics of the media itself.
-
- Along with the Limbaugh assault, America voiced its displeasure
with "Hill and Bill," especially as concerns "Hill's"
attempted communization of the health care industry as reflected by the
1994 Congressional Republican landslide midterm elections. Republican
voters rallying to the "Contract with America" were dismissed
by then-Canadian national TV anchor, Peter Jennings, as behaving as "angry
two-year-olds"
-
- Then Tom Brokow's "we,re winning" gaff during
another election night broadcast when the Democrat contender pulled ahead
of his Republican opponent. Then there was "Rathergate" and
The New York Times, Jayson Blair embarrassment. The latter rekindled memories
of The New York Times, egregious Walter Duranty fraud of 1932, which was
perpetrated to cover up the starvation murders of millions of Ukrainians
during the reign of the left's beloved "Uncle Joe" Stalin. This
denigrated both the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism that Duranty was awarded,
as well as the issuers of that prestigious accolade: the Columbia University
Graduate School of Journalism.
-
- In the opinion segment of their Sunday edition of October
16th entitled Perspective, The Star-Ledger, New Jersey's largest newspaper
with a Sunday edition circulation of almost 600,000, ran a piece by an
Evan Cornog, who is billed as publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review,
and who also serves as an associate dean of the Columbia University Graduate
School of Journalism. He wrote the article in his monthly column, "Media
Nation" His complete article can be found here
-
- http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/cornog/index.ssf?
/base/columns-0/1129438867162570.xml&coll=1
-
- Cornog's piece, entitled, "What would Franklin do?"
alludes to the sheer helplessness of a poor, disadvantaged press, struggling
for truth while in the clutches of the ruthless, reporter-intimidating,
powerful government threat that is the Bush administration. He cites the
terrible plight and persecution of Judith Miller. Never mind that Miller
was a Bush administration propagandist as Pat Buchanan points out
-
- http://antiwar.com/pat/
-
- "Enter Judy Miller, self-styled Miss Run Amok
-
- http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/26911/
-
- and the go-to girl for the War Party. Miller took the
cherry-picked intel and planted it on page one, enabling War Party propagandists
to hit the TV talk-show circuit and reference ominous stories in The New
York Times about how imminent a threat Saddam had become. These propagandists
were parroting their own pre-cooked intel, but it now had the imprimatur
of the Times. The White House had seduced the good Gray Lady of 43rd Street
into turning tricks for war"
-
- Cornog cites Miller's imprisonment, and the threat of
similar such incarceration directed at Matt Cooper of Time magazine, as
a "serious defeat for the power of the press to serve as watchdog
on government and other institutions of power - a defeat in spite of Miller's
courageous willingness to endure imprisonment to protect the confidentiality
of her source. And it is just one among many recent setbacks for the press"
Clearly, Cornog dismisses the power of one other "institution of
power"; namely, his own medium: the American propaganda-generating
press as demonstrated by Miller.
-
- Cornog then gets to the heart of his lament: "Other
defeats of the journalism business have been in the news in recent weeks,
in particular a rash of layoffs and buyouts announced at major newspapers
throughout the country - in Boston and Philadelphia, San Jose and New York,
and plenty of others in between. And more bad news is thought to be on
the way concerning declining newspaper circulation, which may in turn bring
further job cuts in newsrooms"
-
- He than slyly converts the audience he refers to from
newspaper "readers" to news "viewers," thereby including
television network news consumers in his observations: "Readers and
viewers simply don't seem as committed to the news as their parents and
grandparents were. For many Americans, the news is becoming confused with
entertainment, and following the news is in danger of becoming a sometimes
engaging but ultimately optional interest, like knitting or fishing"
-
- His reference to parents and grandparents is a good one,
albeit, the reality of their impact and influence is totally lost on him;
but his referencing confusion between TV news in terms of public service
information versus entertainment resultant from the network pursuit of
market segment revenues shouldn't be.
-
- Cornog then makes the Franklin connection: "Journalists
tend to think their profession is essential, certainly in a democracy,
but history is less certain. Thinking about the struggles journalism faces
today sent me back to the writings of our nation's founding journalist,
Ben Franklin"
-
- Cornog relates how young Franklin was an apprentice printer
under the harsh tutelage of his older brother James, the latter the publisher
of the New-England Courant. When James Franklin criticized the Massachusetts
legislature, Cornog points out that James Franklin was jailed and banned
from publishing his paper. Citing this harsh treatment by government,
and shielding modern journalistic responsibility by not only referencing
the plight of America's "founding journalist," his reference
as well to an American Founder adds both an historic and a "patriotic"
justification for a kowtowing press.
-
- That Franklin made it a point to avoid "private
altercations" does not, however, justify a press that systematically
avoids major news events vital to the sustenance of "democracy"
And offering this alibi for such an early endeavor in the history of journalism
as being justification for the egregious editorialization of important
news events and their selective classification as regards events that are
today spiked, downplayed, delayed, or relegated to insignificance, or even
ridiculed, is astonishing nonsense for one with such prestigious credentials.
-
- Cornog's most offensive observations are these: "But
once the Stamp Act and other unpopular British measures provoked harsh
reactions in the colonies, the market for newspapers grew, and there a
market emerged for more controversial material. In the heated political
climate, papers had to align themselves either with London or with the
patriot cause. Patriot newspapers and the pamphlets that poured from the
presses of colonial printers helped in large measure to set the stage for
the Revolution, and this tradition of a partisan press then continued well
into the 19th century until a new ideal of objectivity (on the news pages)
emerged"
-
- Now understanding that these remarks are the remarks
of an associate dean of the prestigious Columbia University Graduate School
of Journalism, the institution that awards the much-sought-after Pulitzer
Prize, keep in mind also his responsibility in educating America's future
journalists. And now observe also how this "professional" merges
factual news event reporting with editorial opinion. Perhaps we have found
the source of the non-existence of a boundary separating fact-based reporting
and objectivity with the editorialization of all news issues through Rush
Limbaugh's "template" of "liberal bias" in reporting.
Again, whether or not "liberal," it is nevertheless journalistic
bias, and it is totally unprofessional.
-
- Considering the source, a bastion of journalistic training,
expression and motivation, this is indeed a case of "physician heal
thyself!" Cornog's bizarre reflections merit further examination.
-
- Remarking upon the pamphlets "that set the stage
for the American Revolution," the most notable amongst them, Thomas
Paine's Common Sense, Cornog repeats that observation in a prior essay
he authored: "It is particularly ironic that this [loss of interest
in news reporting on the part of the young] is happening in the United
States, whose revolution and then founding were to a significant extent
the product of debates carried out in pamphlets and newspapers. The greatest
work of political philosophy ever composed in America, the Federalist Papers,
was published serially in New York newspapers to support the ratification
of the Constitution there.
-
- In recognition of the role that the press played in the
nation's founding, and in appreciation of the crucial role it plays in
maintaining a free society, the press was granted special protections under
the First Amendment"
-
- Cornog wrote that in his Columbia Journalism Review in
his essay entitled, "Let's Blame the Readers," published in the
January/February edition of CJR. He continues his observation in that offering,
writing, "But the founders knew that a free press would be worth little
if the people could not read it, so public education became one of the
great obsessions of the leaders of the early republic" He goes on
to acknowledge the importance of educating the public, and then aligns
his "thinking" with that of yet another great American patriot,
Thomas Jefferson. He points out Jefferson's dedication to education by
the latter's founding of the University of Virginia.
-
- Examining these points, Cornog targeted for his dismay
the lack of interest on the part of the younger generation in following
the news. Referring back to Cornog's statement in the first essay cited,
wherein he offers: "Readers and viewers simply don't seem as committed
to the news as their parents and grandparents were," he excludes totally
in this myopic observation the world of pre-television newspaper journalism,
a participatory medium as opposed to the exclusionary television medium
it has degenerated to. He also fails to consider the influence of parents
and grandparents, many of whom have witnessed, and continue to witness,
the editorial manipulation and Limbaugh-identified "templating"
of important events.
-
- In initiating his commentary of October 15th analyzing
government-produced "Fake News
-
- http://interventionmag.com/Primary/modules.php?
op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=28
-
- on the website of Intervention Magazine, writer William
Marvel offers: "When I left Kennett High School at 2:45 p.m. November
22, 1963, I didn't realize that I had stepped out of one historical epoch
and into another. Media analysts have fixed 1963 as the year that television
outstripped print media as the public's principal source of information,
and the Kennedy assassination has to have been the event that tipped the
scales"
-
- Marvel continues, "Thus ended the age in which common
people could effectively participate in public debate. It was the printing
press that freed mankind from the dictatorship of priests and potentates,
opening the way for the experiment in democracy, and Thomas Jefferson envisioned
a nation of independent farmers who educated themselves on public issues
through the printed page. Citizens could not only learn from that medium
but take part in it, either through newspaper submissions or the production
of their own pamphlets. Pamphleteers played a significant role in the
American Revolution, and during the first century of American history an
endless selection of small newspapers provided outlets for the most divergent
opinions. Our national destiny was repeatedly decided by personal debate
on the porch of many a general store littered with such newspapers"
-
- Marvel, referring precisely to the same icons of freedom
as Cornog, comes away stealing the argument right out from Cornog's selective
ignorance. They both mention Thomas Jefferson. They both mention educating
and informing the public. But what Cornog misses entirely, even though
he touches upon it lightly in mentioning debate, is that very key operative
word: "debate." It totally escapes Cornog's understanding; or
is it rather, his preconceived notion. It is most probably the latter,
where he feels communicating down to the ignorant masses that which they
should know, as opposed to first objectively presenting the facts to foster
discussion and debate. First, just the facts - then, each informed individual's
opinion confronting that of another. This is not Cornog's position; it
is, rather, that opinion and fact can be merged in order to "inform"
-
- Now isn't this the real problem with today's MSM? It's
not that the younger generation of today is less news savvy than their
parents and grandparents - it is in all probability that they are more
aware of media propaganda, and realize the worthlessness of the modern
news/entertainment industry, an industry committed to dumbing down America
and an industry "turning tricks" for warmongering, corrupt and
mass murdering politicians. Instead of Cornog and his elitist credentials
and his prestigious institution "blaming the readers," perhaps
he should focus more upon the real facts as to why the MSM is being phased
out by the "non-professionals" of the alternative media.
-
- ©2005 All rights reserved
-
- Ted Lang is a political analyst and freelance writer.
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