Objectivity in the press, who cares?

Here's the scoop. Those of us living outside the Beltway don't have access to unvarnished goings-on of the movers and shakers. C-SPAN offers a little hope, but precious little, as they simply run cameras and capture engineered public pronouncements. Make no mistake, this is a still a good thing, but only up to a certain point.

Without primary, direct access to the newsmakers; WE, the unwashed of Middle America, have to rely upon folks who are making money to -report- the news as a profession. The profession unfortunately these days seems to be casting neutral reporting under the wheels as it's not entertaining enough to hold viewers, readers. So what we end up with is a melange of facts and personal observations from someone who's main concern is whether their hair looks good and the Chyron has their name spelled right. I won't condemn the -entire- profession, just major and increasing portions of it. Communications majors have displaced other, perhaps more appropriate, majors... like history or political science.

Here's the rub. While it's a game or a 'job' to you guys, I'm out here trying to determine which facts in the 'news' I can use to build an accurate worldview. I would like my arguments to bear the force of truth and fact behind them. What I get from the news operations, however, are sophisticated puzzles that have to been de-spun and politically-neutralized... and frankly, I have trouble doing that well. Most people don't even attempt the distillation and swallow down the raw reportage uncomplaining. That's not good. They parrot the product of clever wordsmithing and try to pass it off as erudition.

Finally: What if the "news" is not only spun, but bubbles up from the fevered mind of a self-described "Rodeo Clown" who loves the ratings, but won't be taking any responsibility for the consequences of that content. This is not careless or naive at work here, this is premeditated deception. Free Speech is a great thing and says he can do it, and there appears to be no conscience or corporate media ethics to restrain him.

I do worry about the sudden uptick in militia activity and I do worry about the increasing threat of violence... IF I'm de-spinning all the incoming information correctly. In the back of mind, however, is this agitated little voice wondering whether the threat is smaller... or larger than what's being reported. From where I sit, in Middle America, I don't know and am having trouble finding out.

No, no. -Less- objectivity is better.

A belated, yet interesting, rebuke to my last posting here.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/35257_Page2.html

In essence: CNN has lost 40% of it's audience because it is too centrist, too fact-oriented, too boring. Fox and MSNBC are the models to be emulated. Audiences want "edgy". Read the article for yourself and see what you think.

More bread, more circuses.

Objectivity

It really annoys me that while objectivity is not entirely dead in the media, it certainly is in perilous condition and losing ground. "Objectivity" means, to me, a presentation of the facts in as neutral a fashion as humanly possible (taking into account unavoidable human psychological tendencies and working purposely to identify/eliminate any bias). Let me be clear: Just wandering into an event, turning on a TV camera, and calling it 'done' is not right. C-SPAN runs the camera without talking heads, but this cannot be considered objective because 'fact check' is missing. Report on what was said, but then correct the speaker's stated number of '8 million participants' to the actual, counted '500 people were there'. Sgt Friday from Dragnet had it right in stating he wanted just the facts.

Americans are no longer getting 'just the facts'. They're getting a carefully engineered screed purposely designed more to entertain in the guise of information than to provide real reportage, more to provide profits than facts. Sensationalism is much cheaper to produce and, like a diet of junk food, much more popular. Couple this now with agenda-driven news organizations who twist whatever remained of worthwhile content into agitprop, and we have a real challenge to our form of government.

Free speech is vital to a democracy and I do not want to restrict this in any way. What needs to be addressed is those who insist on yelling "Fire" in a crowded movie house. We have got to place more importance on the truth... even when it is not as entertaining.

Radio time

It is early Saturday morning, once again, and I shall soon be heading off to the studios of 590 WVLK-AM to do my morning show. In these pre-shower moments, I have already walked the dog and am aware of the polar temperatures in store for me outdoors.

Another zombie we should add to the list is: Rep Eric Cantor's (R-VA) story about the bullet being shot maliciously through his district office's front window. Richmond VA police report however that, from the trajectory (almost straight down) and the feeble energy (penetrated/broke the front window, but bounced off Venetian blinds), said bullet most likely had been shot straight up into the air... somewhere... and just randomly happened to strike this particular window. In other words, "I shot an arrow into the air. It fell to earth I know not where".

Sadly, this zombie shall stalk the land frightening peasants for some time to come. Thanks, Eric.

Dead things

Was going to call this Zombie Talk, but that's a little too cutesy. What concerns me is the number of dead ideas, projects, philosophies all stumbling around out there, unproductively consuming thought cycles in the public arena. They won't go away, they won't die...

Here in Lexington, Kentucky (where I'm based at the moment), we have a few possible zombies:
1) CentrePoint Project directly in the middle of downtown which converted historic buildings into... nothing.
2) Slot machines at horse racing tracks. Friend of mine in New Hampshire says a variant of this zombie is crawling through their legislature, too.
3) Senator Jim Bunning who, quite some time ago, declined his chance to seek re-election.

To be sure, there are much bigger zombies on the national stage (think AIG), but let's start locally. More later.

Post Facebook

Over in the world of Facebook... billions of friends now know this thing exists. It's not "if", but "did" built, they will come... maybe.

The compulsion to crusade just keeps rearing its ugly head in my genetic code and, should it appear this medium has any legs, will start venting here soon. I am suddenly encouraged to get the ultrasonic cleaner out and return the poison drawing pen to serviceable mode. Cartoons to the Editor have been fun in the past, but this way I can avoid the H-L dictating just how inappropriate I can get. That's it. More later.

Additional test

Again, experimentation (sorry). The engineering of these technical things can be tricky.