Journal jcast's Journal: Crazy Journalist Gatekeepers 1
Jay Rosen thinks this rant is revealing about Sinclair. It is much more revealing about him and his journalistic friends.
Deep down, the executives want themselves and their convictions on the air.
And he has a problem with that. What happened to the ``freedom of the press extends to television'' arguments that are always so important whenever some TV producer lowers the bar on on-air smut? Does freedom of the press really exclude political speech?
Update: Rosen also links to this comment, from Terry Heaton, which sounds almost sane:
And that means the decline and fall of the mainstream press in America is inevitable. It is so, because the whole thing is sleight-of-hand anyway, and the people aren't as stupid as we once thought. If you cannot see this happening, you are in denial. The very people complaining about Sinclair now are those who've participated in the same thing on many different levels and in many different ways. The system is corrupt, not Sinclair. Hell, they're just players, and anybody who thinks otherwise simply hasn't read history.
The press doesn't have the right to judge journalism anymore. That's been transferred to the citizens, who are now armed with their own printing presses and television towers and have taken back "the public trust." The idea that the institution of the press is self-policing has been exposed as a self-serving illusion. Those who ask if it's too late for the media to clean up its act are missing the point. The professional media "act" has never been clean.
I don't want a return to an unbiased media, because that's impossible. So, I don't want a media that claims it is unbiased (no, I don't want even Fox News's ``fair and balanced''), because any such media ends up magnifying its own prejudices as the standard for objective truth. I don't want a media at all. I want a free press, regulated by no one---not even the government-instituted television monopolies---which offers a voice to every position, in proportion as people are willing to listen. Journalistic objectivity has no place here; what is wanted is the ability to recognize objective truth and present evidence about it---the opposite of `he said, she said' objectivity. After all, every scientific paper ever written was an argument for a particular position, and we still trust science---not because we think scientists don't have beliefs, but because we think they have respect for evidence. Whiners about Sinclair may or may not have beliefs, but they have no respect for evidence.
Update:Jay Rosen also quotes Siva Vaidhyanathan as follows:
We need a serious, bold politically engaged set of political voices on our airwaves, regardless of orientation. We need real conservative media and real liberal media (and perhaps libertarian media and socialist media and Silly Party media). Right now we have boring, spineless media.
If local stations are going to push themselves into politics, more power to them (even if they do so on orders from corporate headquarters). I wish more local stations spent real money or pre-empted shows like "The Bachelor" in favor of political content, even propaganda. Let them deal with the fallout. Jay Rosen has a better idea. He says Kerry should accept Sinclair's offer to respond. I agree with Jay.
Our broadcasters are timidly conservative. This is not acceptable on either count. Let's encourage rich, loud, messy engagement with politics, even if it means allowing shallow, dishonest propaganda once in a while. We should just answer back with better information and more attractive answers. Sorry folks. This is what democracy is all about.
Exactly.
I knew there was a reason I friended you! (Score:2)