Writing in the WaPo, Howard Kurtz regrets the fact that the mainstream media can no longer keep the national conversation moving down approved lines:
The crackling, often angry debate over health-care reform has severely tested the media’s ability to untangle a story of immense complexity. In many ways, news organizations have risen to the occasion; in others they have become agents of distortion. But even when they report the facts, they have had trouble influencing public opinion…
Perhaps journalists are no more trusted than politicians these days…
Oh. Perhaps.
You know, it really is a shame. An informed electorate is crucial to the operations of the Republic. There are a lot of voices shouting from the sidelines. But if the legacy media is “no more trusted than politicians” these days, that has little to do with peoples’ trust and a great deal to do with media credibility.
Newsman, heal thyself.
Oh my goodness, Lex, I so much agree with you about newsmen/women and newspapers. Just finished scanning The Houston Chronicle … took me a minute and a half to scan the front pages [formerly referred to as "the world news" section]. No news of either war we are currently engaged in on page 1. Instead we are treated to a story about how oysters *reely* work hard in the natural world of Galveston Bay to keep things going, a story which should “reely” be in the second section among local and regional news, along with the other story dominating the page, about real estate deals on a new jail, the Reliant Stadium and the Astrodome. I could go on, but my blood pressure won’t permit it.
This is a sad comedown from what newspapers used to be. Today’s newspapers are not simply biased. They are actively engaged in propaganda. Like you and most of your commenters here, I get my news from the Internet. It takes time, but at least it isn’t poorly-digested and regurgitated political propaganda.
If the print newspapers are dying, they deserve to.
Marianne
I cancelled my subscription to my state’s paper – The Hartford Courant and by all accounts one of the most liberal papers in the nation – about 3 years ago. It was during the time after the Israeli soldier had been kidnapped by Lebanon and the bombings were nearly constant. The Courant kept putting pics of the damages caused by Israeli bombs above the fold on the front page; it seemd they never put up ones showing the damages caused by Lebanon.
The Oracle thought I was being nuts about it. Until we received our last Sunday Courant. In the editorial pages was a piece written by their very own customer service representative, responding to complaints just like mine. The paper did an analysis of their coverage and what do you think they found?
Of 14 covers on the subject of the Israeli/Lebanon conflict – they ran 12 covers showing damage in Lebanon and 2 in Israel. I “hmphed” to The Oracle as I shared the story with him.
It proved the point I was making and that is continually made every single day in the mainstream media – they are biased hacks who couldn’t tell the truth if it was all they had to tell.
I must agree with Marianne and Lex; I do not subscribe to any newspaper, because I don’t trust that they deliver the “product,” i.e., unadulterated news. They not only spin things, they also very conviently choose to NOT report things that somehow don’t fit within their agendas. Access to internet allows me to investigate things on my own, but my wife now complains that I’m a “political junkie,” because I’m actually informed about events. *sigh*
Oops, misused the whole Block Quote thing.
Meant to do this:
First, When do they report the facts?
Second, Why are they trying to influence public opinion, instead of reporting the news?
This is just wrong on so many levels.
If they hadn’t insisted upon living in their own little echo chambers for the past7-8 years, they’d know a large number have had that basic opinion of them for years…not just the last few months.
Still making those buggy whips….
xformed/
Heh, yeah, “perhaps?” As in what planet have you been living on all these years, Rip VW?
I seem to remember the annual polls always listing the MSM in the 18-21 percentile of credibility. Usually lower than the politicians. Always lower than the presidents. And barely a third of the credibility of the US Military at the press’ best and the military’s worst….
T
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Even the media.
Loss of ability to “influence” sounds pretty good to me.
OOPS. Could have used that correction thingy.
Anyway: There is a reason that FOX News took off as it did – there was a need and they filled it. There is still a great void and anyone in the media biz who has the smarts and the guts to fill it will do remarkably well. That need is to give the news…straight news, no commentary until and unless marked as such. Maybe even have a couple or more good analysts then talk / debate fairly over points in which there are alternative approaches – but no cheap “debate points” and none of the really awful partisanship one sees from people such as we see on MSNBC. Something in the nature of the format of Britt Hume on Fox, but to include the news. I think such a news show on any channel would be a huge winner. It could be educational and far more helpful than much of what passes for news now. I’d watch for more than an hour if they’d offer something like this….”The People’s News & Comment.” Sign me up.
I haven’t subscribed to a newspaper since my parrot died, oh, going on 12/13 years now.
I consider using a newspaper to line a birdcage redundant.
Howard Kurtz is a bit slow on the take, isn’t he?
Even had the newspapers not been pursuing a political agenda, they would still have had a very hard time….companies that dominate at one stage of a technology rarely dominate at the next stage, and often don’t even survive (see steam>diesel locomotives and tubes>transistors for examples)….it would have required brilliant management to come through relatively unscathed, and I doubt this is very common in the industry.
But the political bias has made things much worse than they needed to be, to the point I think there is probably a real question of fiduciary duty on the part of some managements.
“Perhaps journalists are no more trusted than politicians these days…”
One is compelled to conclude that Mr Kurtz is an 18 yr old freshman beginning his studies in earnest. Surely this issue has been settled since the advent of classical sophistry.
They want to be partners with the pols now, rather than nemesis.