Posted by Jim Lindgren:
Diversifying the Media.--
At GlennReynolds.com, Glenn [1]comments on recent stories on
objectivity and the media:
Elsewhere on this site today, Howard Fineman announces the death of
the mainstream media as a political entity. He calls it "The
American Mainstream Media Party," and says it began when Walter
Cronkite spoke out against the Vietnam War, and ended in 2004, when
people quit trusting the mainstream media.
I think there's a connection, of course: Political parties aren't
noted for their honesty or lack of bias, and when the media became
a sort of political party (which it denied for years, but which is
now so obvious that Fineman can pronounce its death) it became less
honest, though it's not clear that the press was ever as
disinterested as it sometimes pretended. That's why when Fineman
writes, "Still, the notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream
press was, to me at least, worth holding onto," I think he's wrong.
The reality of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press would be
worth holding onto -- if it had ever existed. But it didn't. What
Fineman identifies as a golden age of neutrality was really a sham,
and an artifact of two short-lived phenomena: First,
Democratic/liberal political dominance so widespread at the time,
at least among politicians and the press, that there weren't a lot
of things to fight about; and, second, the inability of people who
noticed bias and dishonesty to get the word out.
Neither situation obtains today. And rather than talk about the
demise of neutrality and objectivity in news reporting, it might be
better to note that CBS's problems, and the problems with Big Media
in general, stem from an obvious and heavy-handed lack of
neutrality and objectivity, coupled with a dishonest -- and
increasingly lame and obvious -- effort to pretend otherwise.
Earlier this month, "CBS News president Andrew Heyward, along with
Washington bureau chief Janet Leissner, . . . [2]met with White House
communications director Dan Bartlett, in part to repair chilly
relations with the Bush administration."
While as an interim strategy, bending over backwards to be fair to
those one opposes politicically is reasonable for CBS, the longterm
solution is to have about as many conservative producers and
executives as liberals. If I were a CBS executive, I would go to a
young, connected journalist like James Taranto at the Wall Street
Journal's Opinion Journal and hire him or get ideas from him on whom
to hire.
There are interesting stories out there that just don't get covered
much by the MSM. It may be too late for the MSM to begin covering
UNSCAM vigorously or the successes in Afghanistan. But there are
other, newer stories: In the last few weeks, Diplomad has been
[3]detailing UN efforts to [4]take credit for US and Australian relief
efforts in Asia, and the UN's remarkable ineffectiveness in Aceh. What
a natural for a big 60 Minutes or other newsmagazine story, sorting
out to what extent these charges are or are not true! The point of
fair reporting is not for CBS or other organs of the MSM to blunt
criticisms of Bush, but just to report the interesting true stories,
many of which will be embarrassing to the President, some of which
won't.
For example, if you report the ultimately unsubstantiated suggestions
that Bush might have been AWOL 30-35 years ago, as CBS did repeatedly,
then report the substantiated reports that Kerry did not spend
Christmas in Cambodia 36 years ago. Or reject both stories as too old
to be relevant.
If last spring you report a letter signed by former military people
that Bush is unfit to be Commander in Chief, then report the similar
letter available at roughly the same time signed by nearly every
person in the chain of command above Kerry in Vietnam saying that he
was unfit to be Commander in Chief. Or reject both stories as probably
partisan political moves cooked up for an election.
My point is that, with a politically diverse staff, being roughly fair
will be much easier and will be a normal outcome of the process of
choosing, reporting, producing, and vetting the stories. And the TV
news will be more interesting, more true, and more trusted.
References
1. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6807970/#050112
2. http://www.broadcastingcable.com/CA490493.html
3. http://volokh.com/posts/1104649456.shtml
4. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_01_00.shtml#1104772315
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