There have been various proposals to "save journalism" from the crisis
brought on by digitalization. But by and large these ideas have less to
do with meeting the information needs of a democratic society than with
preserving the profit potential of existing media outlets.
TV host Lou Dobbs abruptly quit his CNN
program yesterday, bringing a sudden end to a television program most
notable for its remarkably one-sided presentation of immigration issues.
David Brooks' column today
perfectly illustrates what lies at the core of our political
discourse: namely, self-loving tribalistic blindness laced with a
pathological refusal to accept responsibility for one's actions.
Brooks claims there is a unique evil that one finds in the "fringes of
the Muslim world":
NEW YORK - Last week, rumors from the world of print media were rife: a hundred reporters from
The New York Times
news desk to be bought out - or to lose their jobs if they refuse;
steep cutbacks at British newspapers; staffs slashed at Condé Nast -
eight respected editors axed at Glamour
magazine. In the United States and elsewhere, there is a sense that
the long-foreseen implosion of news publishing is accelerating, having
reached a kind of critical mass.
The Iraq war's chief New York Times cheerleader has reversed field on Afghanistan. Does it mean there will be no escalation?
In early 1968, after the devastating Tet Offense, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite pronounced the Vietnam War unwinnable. Lyndon Johnson knew he had "lost middle America" and soon declined to run for a second term. The war dragged on for seven more hellish years. But the hearts and minds of the American public had been lost.
The last line of this article
on how the Najibullah Zazi arrest was a victory for the Obama
Administration's approach to terrorism boasts that the Administration
didn't have a John Ashcroft-style press conference on the day of the
arrest.
Journalism is breaking my heart. Or should I say, “journalism.”
Hate-mongering media extremists have captured our news networks and are using the public’s platform – our airwaves – to pick off progressive leaders like Van Jones and misinform the American people.
Nothing new there, of course. But it’s especially outrageous that the same networks that didn’t challenge the rush to war with Iraq and Afghanistan now host right-wing talking heads suspicious of healthcare reform who help spread absurd lies about “death panels.”
Faced with a growing movement of communities demanding that CNN drop his program, Lou Dobbs responded Friday
with one of his favorite postures: the victimized defender of American
virtue. "They ask CNN to fire me because I oppose illegal immigration"
said Dobbs, who added, "The last thing they want is a first amendment,
where people can express themselves... These are the most un-American,
frightened people in the world because they won't compete in the
marketplace of ideas and facts."
Acorn is a poor people's grassroots organization.
Earlier this month, some of it's employees were caught on tape giving advice to two young right-wing activists posing as pimp and prostitute.
Pfizer is a wealthy and powerful multinational corporation.
Earlier this month, a Pfizer unit pled guilty to a felony in connection with a major health care fraud and paid $2.3 billion in fines.
So, if the Democratically controlled Congress were to vote to either:
a) strip federal funding from the grassroots group Acorn, or
"Businesses
exist to serve the general welfare. Profit is the means, not the end.
It is the reward a business receives for serving the general welfare.
When a business fails to serve the general welfare, it forfeits its
right to exist."
Do Adam
Smith's famously forgotten words of caution for capitalists apply to
journalism? Is this why, when I go to the newsstand these days, I see
my city's two great newspapers sitting there like twin anorexics,
panhandling (I mean pandering) for quarters?
