Patterico's Pontifications

1/25/2013

The Media Is A Big Part of the Problem

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:03 pm



Ace says we must do something about the media.

The media no longer hides it in their actions. They are fully fused with the Obama Administration and DNC. The only way in which they do hide it is by simply lying when confronted about it: They’ll issue a snide denial, then go about doing precisely what it is they were accused of doing.

This is dangerous and unhealthy. I keep banging this drum but honestly, some patriotic billionaires do have to band together to purchase or build a media outlet. The outlet would be founded upon a simple premise: that it is dangerous and ultimately fatal for democracy for media power to fuse with government power, that the adversarial press is vital.

If we have any hope of fixing the horrible crisis we are facing, the electorate must be educated. But any time someone tries, Democrats howl that they are trying to kill old people and children, and the media joins right in.

Obama gave a partisan inauguration speech and they tried to tell you it was Lincolnesque. Hillary shrugged her shoulders at Benghazi lies and they told you that she had won. As Ace puts it, media’s power is perfectly fused with government’s power. “This is dark, and dangerous, and will lead to horrors. It always has lead to horrors before.”

As with most things, I don’t have the solution. I just know that diagnosing the problem is the first step. National Democrats and the media are the primary problem, because they are lying about the severity of the crisis.

We should all keep thinking about the solution, because it is important.

Glenn Reynolds says: “[G]o full Alinsky. Buy stock and show up at shareholder meetings. Protest at executives’ homes, like ACORN did for bankers. Hound correspondents and anchors by name for unfair coverage. That’s how you do it.”

I’m not sure that will solve the problem, but I don’t see how it would hurt. We certainly have no obligation to make it easy for them to lie to the public.

One thing is to identify the honest ones who don’t have a big head, and support them. I don’t always agree with Jake Tapper, but he’s willing to talk to people like Ace and me, and he’s willing to ask tough questions. You guys might not like to hear this, but Jan Crawford is one of the good ones and she deserves the support of honest people. Using allies — not ideological allies, necessary, but people who care about truth — is important. And also can’t hurt.

Breitbart always said the media was the biggest enemy. I’m not sure they’re the only one or the biggest one, but they’re right up there. Don’t ever forget it.

67 Responses to “The Media Is A Big Part of the Problem”

  1. I hesitate to mention Crawford because it will probably throw off the discussion and create a distraction, but it’s what I believe. Trust me or don’t.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  2. journalists are weak-assed little whorepigs by themselves

    they’re like hyenas they run in packs

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  3. except for candy crowley

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  4. As with most things, I don’t have the solution.

    Pray that what has happened to Newsweek magazine in the past few weeks (ie, although it still operates, its presence, now that it’s limited to cyberspace only, seems less tangible, relevant and visible) happens to much of the media in general.

    Mark (43380c)

  5. Ace is not exactly breaking the barriers of thought experimentation or originality with his post.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  6. i think Ace is identifying the priority

    I think a lot of people can spend today yammering angstily about our new squadron of killchicks

    but i think Ace is identifying the priority

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  7. It’s like he just woke and noticed, hey, the Journalist Aristocracy is biased or something, maybe that influences public opinion.

    Did he just wake up?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  8. Ace is not exactly breaking the barriers of thought experimentation or originality with his post.

    I didn’t say he was. None of this is really new. But he has a certain passion and force of expression that I admire.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  9. Maybe it was a slow news day for him what with beating up on Joan Walsh and Hillary.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  10. it’s a sine qua non

    we have to decontaminate our media and we have to do it fast and what people are waking up to is maybe we don’t have to Honor The Niceties

    this is a new idea

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  11. It hasn’t been a new idea for a long time.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  12. i dunno

    Mr. Ace’s piece is sure resonating different than that lifeydoodle church lady pablum L Brent Bozell and pals have been shoveling since forever

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  13. What’s the counterargument to the point that the media – especially the mainstream media – is a business, and as a business solely concerned with giving the people what they want?

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  14. I can see a number of counterarguments, by the way, but I’m curious.

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  15. fascism takes business and makes a wee little cat toy of it Mr. Leviticus

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  16. What’s the counterargument to the point that the media – especially the mainstream media – is a business, and as a business solely concerned with giving the people what they want?

    Let them, and national Democrats, give the people what they want. Then the country will collapse. Then we’ll sort through the rubble.

    Or I guess we could raise taxes a tiny bit on everyone and all will be fine? (Which is my not so subtle effort to get you to discuss budget numbers. Honestly, I figure if I can’t get through to an intelligent semi-lefty with a somewhat open mind, it’s hopeless. So I’m being kind of a nag about it.)

    Patterico (8b3905)

  17. What difference, at this point, does it make?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  18. hillaryrocks?

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  19. Sadly, the OC Register’s new owners have now supplemented AP wire reports with NYT News Service and McClatchy. They decided to bring more “balance” to the editorial section by hauling in more lefty opinion journalists. I have written perhaps half a dozen letters to the editor pointing out specific factual inaccuracies (not differences of opinion which passes for factual inaccuracy in the progressive mind)in “news” articles and columns, but none have been published. Yet, more leftist reader comments are finding their way into print. (Previously I had about an 80% publication success ratio – so I am not a flaming ideologue.)

    When the OC Register joins the enemy media camp it is time to re-examine whether there is a reliable newspaper left that puts forth even a half-hearted attempt to provide a truly balanced view of the news and rebuts leftist propaganda.

    in_awe (7c859a)

  20. OC Register has been a NYT subscriber for a long time. That’s when I dropped ’em.

    Dirty Old Man (0c7e45)

  21. Patterico – When you need someone to go to a hacks home and protest, let me know, I’m all in. This is the way to sanity. Shoveling are beliefs down their throats will be good for morale.
    When I was at Gathering of Eagles 1 on 3-17-2007 the enthusiasm
    for keeping the anarchist’s from vandalizing the war memorials in D.C. was life inspiring. Thanks M. Malkin. Her and a few others pulled this off. Rolling Thunder, those nam bikers are true American Heroes, as they provided feelings of togetherness, I had feelings run through me like no other. Proud to be an American, I guess. Let us rally and take the media down.

    mg (31009b)

  22. The easy way to resolve this issue is through communication. By that I mean communicating with your local media people, their families, their friends and advertisers. Remember, “all politics are local”. Tell your media people, their friends, their family and the advertisers in public, on the phone, in harsh words how they appear to be traitors to this Nation. You don’t make threats. You express disgust. You degrade them. You tell them to their face your are sick of their kind and what they represent. You let them know you think they are stupid. You embarrass them. You make it hurt. When you see a local advertisement you call that local company and tell them you that advertising on that channel or station is enough to make you not spend another dime. The effort must be Nation wide. When you pass a media van doing a story stop and spit not the ground in front of them. Call them trash. When they give the excuse “hey we are just trying to do our job” let them know that drug dealers, whores, are just trying to do their jobs as well and they are all from the same bucket of crap.

    Until we attack the media, until we let them personally know, they will not change. We are not dealing with smart people in the media. We are just dealing with the people with microphones. I say “GIVE IT TO THEM!”

    OldSarg (e0493e)

  23. This is dangerous and unhealthy. I keep banging this drum but honestly, some patriotic billionaires do have to band together to purchase or build a media outlet. The outlet would be founded upon a simple premise: that it is dangerous and ultimately fatal for democracy for media power to fuse with government power, that the adversarial press is vital.

    This is a common way conservatives think about the media problem, but it misses what the real problem is.

    Leftwing education has done its work. Conservatives who were thinking about becoming journalists got weeded out by their professors’ agenda based views of the profession. It was easier to go elsewhere, getting degrees in things like business and engineering.

    So now the developed talents in the field of propaganda are almost all leftwing hacks.

    The problem is the way we do education. It all starts there.

    Roland (c4ee0b)

  24. That is what Robin is highlighting on the other thread, but there is a larger problem, whenever one is forthright about what the other side is doing, one is castigate

    narciso (3fec35)

  25. “The problem is the way we do education. It all starts there.” You are right but the “change” we need must happen now.

    OldSarg (e0493e)

  26. #23 — SPOT ON!

    I took Journalism classes and found them relentlessly lefty. Even in the situation where a newspaper/network ownership is bottom-line conservative, the reporters are mostly left leaning. Partly this is group think — partly because they gravitate to the profession.

    The best example of a conservative style outlet is Fox News, but most left leaning folks wouldn’t touch it w/a ten foot pole. If conservatives bought a media outlet, the lefties in the other media outlets would “Bork” them.

    Not an insurmuntable problem, but a problem nonetheless.

    Besides, look at the traditional media’s profit problems. Who’d want to invest in a newspaper right now?

    ukuleledave (5dc1c2)

  27. Really, I think it only changes if and when we get to our “Ultimate Chip Diller Moment” — that is, when you have a major foreign or domestic crisis that is obviously the results of the current administration’s actions or inactions, and the big media outlets stand on the sidewalk screaming “All is well!” as people run by in panic.

    The growth of multimedia and internet options has meant that the low-information voters have a far easier time remaining low-information voters, catching their ‘news’ from whatever their favorite celebrities are saying or The Daily Show. It will take a major event that both suddenly jars them and negatively affects them to make them focus at least briefly on getting more information, and being told everything’s wonderful while they personally can see things are falling apart would be the wake-up call that the big media outlets and some of their non-traditional-but-liberal media sources aren’t playing it straight.

    John (08a399)

  28. “[G]o full Alinsky. Buy stock and show up at shareholder meetings. Protest at executives’ homes, like ACORN”

    Won’t happen because those that would protest that are workers and don’t have a union to pay them to protest.

    Rich (b2e8a5)

  29. OldSarg is right but you know if a couple threats accidentally got threated oh well

    are you scared little propaganda whore?

    come here i piss on you head

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  30. They keep switching mascots, yet their premiums keep going up, it’s no longer the discount insurer.

    narciso (3fec35)

  31. It’s not just the media. We are seeing the emergence of an open axis of alignment between progressive-led corporate and a progressive government, something NEVER before seen in America but instead found in fascist states.

    From denial of capital by progressive influenced banks and funds (read Cerberrus and guns or Rahm, BofA and guns) to the lockstep propaganda of media, this is incredibly dangerous to liberty.

    RS (410442)

  32. I think we could do much better with commercials on TV that point out obvious dishonesty- like a clip of Obama the candidate talking about how evil the Bush spending was then figures of the growing debt under Obama. Just make that one point many many times.

    Then a spot on “budget fights”, debts ceilings and such, and show what happened to the Pres’s budget proposals in the Senate and how long it has been since we have had a budget.

    It does take money, and we need to put the info where the “low info” people are, not expect them to seek it out elsewhere.

    And yes, the govt. run educational system has fed our children left-leaning stuff and no critical thinking skills, if it teaches them much of anything at all.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  33. Why aren’t Boehner and McConnell offering up interviews to the Daily Caller and Hot Air? Or our host (isn’t Romney a shortish drive away too)?

    Why not build from what exists instead of buying dinosaur entertainment companies? Instead of the binary choice politicians face in the visual media – FNC or ‘hostile territory’ – raise the stature of an R leaning site so that folks that may be receptive to the Rs message don’t have to hurdle the ‘everybody knows Fox lies’ problem (this is huge). The numbers have to be so big, though, that the media can’t ignore the site’s raised stature.

    Going this route also avoids having to fire half the staff, or more, as would likely have to happen if someone were to buy an existing company. The publicity, fanned by the rest of the media, almost makes that a non-starter……..so you’re left with new ownership and the same staff. So that solution might take a decade or more.

    East Bay Jay (a5dac7)

  34. Politicians should push for using FCC authority to heavily fine media outlets on TV if they ever report untrue information. And write it in there that prosecution must be followed through with, no discretion. A $100,000 fine per instance of nonfactual reporting should do it. Include under the law any speculation by news outlets. Ding them on every instance of claiming Ryan Lanza was the shooter. Ding them on every instance of incorrect calibers on guns. Ding them on every instance of their sensational knee-jerk speculation about a Tea Partier shooting up a movie theater because they can’t fact check anything.

    That should fix the behavior.

    NaBr (3b66ee)

  35. The manner in which the Media protects the Government-of-the-Left, is the same manner in which the Clerisy protected the Bourbons.
    The Media, along with its allies in The Academe, have assumed the role of The Third Estate, protecting The Political Class (The First Estate), and the bureaucracy (The new Second Estate).

    They should hope that this path does not lead (again) to the Place de la Concorde.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  36. Comment by East Bay Jay (a5dac7) — 1/26/2013 @ 10:19 am

    McConnell and Boehner should stay as far away from a microphone or camera as possible.
    They need to hire a spokeshole to do that for them, someone who can counter the lies and disinformation that comes from Carney and the other “administration spokesmen/women”.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  37. they really are just dreadfully uncompelling communicators huh

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  38. But Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are, what am I missing,

    narciso (3fec35)

  39. it’s not a contest Mr. narciso

    errybody gits a ribbin

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  40. What’s the counterargument to the point that the media – especially the mainstream media – is a business, and as a business solely concerned with giving the people what they want?

    Comment by Leviticus (17b7a5) — 1/25/2013 @ 10:42 pm

    The subject here is LYING. Are you saying consumers of mainstream media content want to be lied to?

    Actually probably some do.

    Gerald A (f26857)

  41. Perhaps the hard working patriotic Americans should say f-ck it, and quit working and start robbing.

    mg (31009b)

  42. I agree, askeptic, about B&Ms communication skills but I’m thinking it’s more about stature. If Rubio talks to the Daily Caller does it make a sound outside of conservative circles? But the Speaker of the House has the heft to require the MSM to cover it. But the more the merrier – why not ‘all of the above’?

    It wouldn’t happen in one stroke – it would likely take years. I don’t think there are any finger snap fixes though, and even this solution may just be creating a new problem (though it’s hard to believe that the right could ever turn the tables on the left in the media world the way things stand now).

    East Bay Jay (a5dac7)

  43. “The subject here is LYING. Are you saying consumers of mainstream media content want to be lied to?”

    Gerald A. – Actually the problem for a lot of them is determining that they are being lied to. How do they figure that out if all they consume is liberal propaganda?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  44. So how do the NYT and the MSM get their money?

    The MSM doesn’t pay for their airwaves at auction, maybe that can cut into their profit margin, but otherwise, they need their prices driven up, sales driven down, margin reduced. How can the NYT have a lower circulation? Newsweek already folded the hardcopy edition, yet they live on. What props up MSNBC and CNN? Airport contracts? Should someone run a website with all adversisers on msnbc, cnn and the MSM news programs and morning shows and every tea party type takes a vow to never ever buy anything made by those companies or sold from those stores?

    Smarty (2c6e8b)

  45. I have a solution: they want to take away our 2nd Amendment rights. I say that we take away their 1st Amendment rights if they are caught abusing them.

    If they are caught slanting news stories, not covering stories that don’t help their political agenda, supporting one party…you get the point…they will be subject to severe fines and/or jail.

    Warmongerel (f8e454)

  46. Mandatory background checks for on-air talent; and 10-day (I’m from CA) waiting periods before publication while someone at the FCC vets your copy.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  47. 47- more….
    If it saves just one life!

    askeptic (2bb434)

  48. Forethought protects you from yourself.

    ropelight (582db7)

  49. Lets be quite clear, the media as it is today and for the past 50 years has been the ENEMY OF THE GOOD that is America. It became apparent when Cronkite ended up on Mary Tyler Moore (recently we found out he tried to get RFK to run for President), these were no longer journalists they were in your face leftists, they wanted what Democrats wanted CONTROL. They have been at this a long, long time my friends, it won’t end over night but it is being picked apart a little at a time.

    If you look to see at how the large journalism schools brought over from Europe post WWII you will see they were German (Nazi’s), Italy (Fascists) Russia (Communists) and of course good little Marxist from the region and We The People of the greatest God given Country in Earth’s history are shocked that the pupils learned the lesson? These people are traitors to America, lets treat them as such!

    JadedByPolitics (581807)

  50. Mary Tyler Moore lives in upstate NY now she’s old as dirt and likes entertaining at home

    for sure though Cronkite needs to get the eff off her

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  51. and that responds to my comment in what way? she will be dead soon he is dead but their changing the “culture” quite lives on.

    JadedByPolitics (581807)

  52. Anybody who isn’t a full-bore Liberal has two problems with the Media;

    1) We haven as a culture, bought into the idea that there CAN BE unbiased reporting. This is absurd. All reporting done by humans will have bias. It is inevitable.

    2) Having bought into the idea of unbiased reporting, we make the mistake of complaining about biased reporting, instead of getting busy ensuring that our own biases are out there. Conservatives, Libertarians, Rastafarians, and Little Green Men need to be buying news outlets and telling the reporters that work for them “I pay you. You will report the stories I want reported, the way I want them reported, or I will fire your ass.”. And when these reporters start burbling about “Freedom of the Press” or some such, laugh.

    C. S. P. Schofield (fdfc57)

  53. It doesn’t but pikachu, is easily distracted by squirrels, he lives in the Boschian landscape of Los Angeles, and yet he doesn’t understand why.

    narciso (3fec35)

  54. 54. Good points.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  55. I meant 53, narciso’s are always good.

    51. Stop it, a guy could join Cronkite prematurely.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  56. Sharyl Attkisson is my idea of a good reporter. She isn’t afraid to challenge the people in power, no matter which Party they belong to.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  57. And it can hurt to support Jan Crawford if it means there isn’t a place for another Sharyl Attkisson.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  58. Sharyll Atkisson and Jake Tapper are rare. Too rare. But I heart them, in a similar way to how I heart DRJ.

    JD (b63a52)

  59. Crawford is good, but she hasn’t gone to the lengths that Atkisson has, and Tapper, after you see him ‘run your state down’ for the brass ring, back in 2000, I’ve been skeptical of him, to say the least.

    narciso (3fec35)

  60. Yeah, the media is blatantly partisan now, and most annoyingly, arrogantly so. Now, most of the time they don’t even correct errors of fact if you email them. The left controls the schools, the media and the popular culture. I don’t know what we can do about it. All I can think of now is to look after me and mine.

    gp (5a38d9)

  61. An amendment to the Constitution is indeed needed………TO GUARANTEE THE SEPARATION OF PRESS AND STATE.

    No Pravda please.

    Rich (b2e8a5)

  62. It’s not the media. People believe the media because they like what the media tells them. They don’t want to hear that the media lies, so they don’t.

    It’s the schools. It just took us this long to get over the tipping point.

    People have been told for generations to believe what they want to believe. There is no truth, so we believe feel-good fantasy. That’s what we have been trained to do. That’s all we can do.

    This will end, but not well.

    Amphipolis (e01538)

  63. I think the idea that any significant change will require the emergence of a competitor to Fox News is very apt

    shep is looking awful sickly btw I think somebody linked something of him this weekend and I got a peek

    but yeah – someone needs to be programming a for reals conservative point of view opposite crap like Huckabee and that morning Foxenfriends dreck so the marketplace of ideas can do its thang

    and chop chop I’m losing patience

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  64. No, Shep is being paid 7 million for his great efforts, a year I think, Fox and Friends are less gagworthy then Soledad’s playhouse, or Morning Joke,

    narciso (3fec35)

  65. less gagworthy is not how we turn this tugboat around for the american way

    happyfeet (ce327d)


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