September 15, 2008

How long, has this been going on?

We the people seem to understand MSM bias better then ever. Due in no small part to a resource as vast as the Internet.

People in New York did not have much alternative media when Pulitzer and Hearst tried to outdo each other with Yellow Journalism.

Neither could people look behind Walter Cronkite's incorrect assessment of the Tet Offensive.

The control of information is a powerful thing. By using biased selection of sources, word choice, omissions, limiting debate, the MSM has seemingly found stories that fit their conclusions for years and years. Truth be damned.

The term would be Advocacy journalism. So what can be done?

Government oversight? While one side of me would love the irony. Government control of knowledge would be worse then what we have now.

Make media non-profit? or break up the big corporation news juggernauts?

Better mission statements? litmus testing journalists and ranking them by bias on a scale?

No idea really. I think it is just one of those things that will keep going on until there is no fiscal reason to operate.

5 comments:

flyingvan said...

A wikipedia approach may work. When a difference of basic opinion rears its head it goes to online poll status

shoo said...

News has been biased pretty much forever. In fact, it was worse back at the founding of our country. I don't think there were any journalistic standards back then.

However, sometime over the last 50 years or so, the left came to completely dominate the major media, and the Universities that produce journalists.

Before the advent of talk radio and the rise of the Internet, the right had no other source of information, and most people didn't know how slanted the news coverage was.

flyingvan said...

What would you think of a Military News Network? Maybe a cable channel, dedicated for the use of the military but available for anyone to watch. Like any media you'd have to avoid propaganda, but maybe it could help restore national pride, attract recruits, and give a view of what the military is accomplishing (something the MSM rarely does) May be a good esprit de corps as well.

ronnwaters said...

Would MNN run news all the time or would it have reruns of Major Dad during the afternoon?

Anonymous said...

What is MSM?

And I vote for non-profit media. You have to take profits out of the equation to keep it honest and unbiased.