Today’s entry in the “Mass Media still don’t get it” competition comes from ……………..wait for it. The New York Times. Now lately there have be glimmers of sanity, nebulous true, and slightly ephemeral. Signs that some in the media have thrown off their “Red Colored” glasses and noticed how very close we stand to the precipice. Unfortunately for all of us not nearly enough have relearned objectivity. You know, that’s where you gather the facts and present them to the public and LET THEM make up their own minds. You don’t use certain facts because they bolster your point, you don’t use certain words for their connotations, for or against a subject. You strive to be as emotionless and unopinionated as possible. It is difficult to do and today almost impossible to find but it is possible.
Shall we take today’s entry for instance. The New York Timesoffered this article in it’s Week in Review. In it the author Matt Bai tries to appear objective in his assessment of ” David Kirkham, the former Eagle Scout and Mormon missionary”. The fact that Mr Kirkman runs and owns his own company with manufactures custom cars, employing not only people in his own community to work in his factory but also in a factory in Poland where the leftovers of Socio-Communist control has stifled entrepreneurship until it is almost deceased, is not enough. He had to add the aside, pointing out to the left thinkers that this man was already a zealot. After all no “real” people are Boy Scouts any more (ie xenophobic, homophopic) and let’s not even go into the whole Mormon bashing methodology.
Then there’s this lovely bit of accidental damage “Then came the Republican-led bank bailouts in 2008”. Huh? Who is the head of the banking commission again, who’s on the Senate committee again, who in 2008 caused a run on a bank, something not seen since the Great Depression? Well, from the lists available to me, there are 13 Democrats with Chairman Chris Dodds and little Chucky Schumer in control as opposed to the 10 Republicans of which Senator Bill Bennett from Utah, who the Utah Tea Party managed to defeat. Just how is that a “Republican” led.
The Dodd-Frank bail out was one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation to come through Congress in a long, long time. According to my count, which is probably flawed when the vote was taken 19 Republicans voted for it (several of which were from CA which means they’re not conservatives, just Republicans) out of 435, or so not including the ones who just voted present? In the Senate 40 Democrats and 33 Republicans voted for the bailout, along with Joe Lieberman. How is this a Republican -led measure? Did they do it by mind control? Remote control?
But to me the crux of the matter is the blatant disregard of the validity of Krikman and those who belong to conservative organizations point of view, as follows ” he started doing what a lot of sickened and powerless people do in the Internet age” and
“What we are seeing now — and are bound to see more of in the years ahead — might better be described as a series of mini-movements. They come together quickly, almost like flash mobs, anointing leaders overnight and reaching peak intensity within weeks or months. They create a satisfying outlet for frustration and a means for social connection.
and
You can try to reason with the David Kirkhams of the world, or adopt their rhetoric. The one thing you can’t do, it seems, is wish the new reality away.
Here’s the reality of the situation. There will always be those who think government is not doing enough. They need to go back to Europe or South America or Asia and experience what giving up your freedoms really mean. I don’t say that with vitriol. They really do need to go where they would be happier. There are on the flip side those who distrust government and those associated with it. In anarchy there is profit, someone once opined. The majority of us simply want what our Constitution guarantees us. The freedoms our fore-fathers fought so hard to win and keep as well as leaders who listen to “We The People” because frankly they serve at out indulgence and behest. Not because they’re smarter or better or richer but because they offered to serve in that capacity.
The statue of blind justice needs to have a twin and that twin needs to be installed in front of every newspaper office in the country. Justice and journalism must be objective or they must be replaced.
My opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful [is]… ‘by restraining it to true facts and sound principle only.’ Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807. ME 11:224
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