Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard
It is an issue...
Richard
You're a Student of History, And I'm Not
Harry Shearer, HuffPo, 14 Dec 2009
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Interesting that the thread has permeated into one of the things that has changed in journalism. Talk show hosts are now on equal footing with trained journalists. Ratings – whether Beck’s or Oprah’s – trump objective reporting.
Journalism has suffered with the onset of 24-hour news which morphed to entertainment news. It is more obvious then ever today, but has been declining over the past 30 years rather markedly. We used to joke about it at the field station. When you know what is really going on, seeing the watered down, filtered for the audience version is rather lame.
Part of the responsibility does rely on us – we all (at least on this site) should understand the reason for multiple sources and multiple methods of information acquisition. If someone has a favorite news channel or radio show, it is comfortable entertainment but it is not intelligence gathering, just entertainment.
Analogous to Afghanistan being compared to Vietnam rather than, well, Afghanistan, is the public option discussion. Putting aside whatever one thinks of healthcare reform, just on the journalism side… A public option by definition is not government run healthcare. It is a government insurance option such as available in Germany. Who do news “personalities” compare? England and Canada. Since neither have a public option/private insurance scheme as proposed, it is a rather useless comparison. So everyone argues moot points and the real debate never occurs. Ditto for Congress and the Senate.
The “Letter for Garcia” thread offers a lesson here -- personal responsibility and initiative. If an individual wants to have an informed opinion, ideally, that person would see it as his mission to seek out data from multiple sources and test the accuracy before he accepts it as fact. Sadly, few reporters do. So, MOO, we are on our own to do the work.
In a way, we are back to the Middle Ages when the “Hofnarr” or court jester was the only one near the king who could speak the truth, through humor. Ah ha! The Daily Show and Colbert Report have their historical perspective established.
"The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson