We’re above the law
Via Buck, who labels it the fourth branch of government, comes this article on the media’s double standard. Well worth reading:
. . . the real message that we receive is that (1) journalists are above the laws that they demand the rest of us obey, and (2) government needs to grow even larger and more oppressive. Although I doubt that Peter Jennings and his crew would openly admit to my charges, I will demonstrate that despite their protestations, ABC—and mainstream journalists in general—have been partly responsible for the Leviathan State that has proven to be much more effective at oppressing people at home than it has in preventing outsiders from attacking the rest of us.
October 28th, 2003 at 1:09 pm
This may be one of your worst links in recent memory.
I disagree with virtually every part of this statement. First of all, I don’t really think that the government “fails to provide” these things. Is there room for improvement? Of course! But try living in Mexico or the Dominican Republic or eastern Europe if you want to see what no security looks like. Secondly, are we really that “heavily taxed” to finance such operations? I’m willing to bet that the percentage of overall tax dollars spent on law enforcement and homeland security is quite small.
Because, of course, only prosecutors (agents of the state) would ever do such a thing. What an idiot. Has this guy been paying any attention to the Kobe Bryant case? The defense has leaked all kinds of stuff to the media, in hopes of preemptively destroying the accuser’s credibility. That knife cuts both ways, in every high profile case, ever.
Let’s be fair here. First, the “dissidents” in question were practicing child molestation, for the love of Pete. Heaven forbid the gub’mint interfere with THAT constitutionally-protected right. It’s a shame so many had to die, and there’s little doubt the raid was botched, but it’s not as if action against them was totally unjustified. Second, the “mainstream media” has also been complicit in brushing over the Bush administration’s myriad constitutional and Geneva Convention violations, too. Why does the author feel the need to go back to the Clinton era, when there are so many current examples to use? Smacks of conservative bias, if you ask me.
WTF is this guy smoking? In this little place called the “real world,” all of the major US media outlets are owned by big private enterprise! So if they run a news story critical of private enterprise, it’s these little fringe activist groups that are to blame? Gimme a friggin break!
October 28th, 2003 at 3:06 pm
Government can never protect us all that efficiently. I agree that they probably do cover the basics but I think the point of the statement was that no matter what protections are put in place someone determined enough will find a way around it. Take for instance the young man who recently put 5 or 6 box cutters and several different planes that went undetected for months. How much time, planning and money have been put into place to prevent such a thing and someone still manages to foil it. Not once but several times. Imagine what a terrorist could do.
Agreed and I am not sure how you would compare the cost of another attack into the equation either.
Yes it cuts both ways and the media shows no restraint when putting this stuff out. Many times it is done without verifying the accuracy or determining whether it is prejudicial or not. In my opinion it doesn’t matter which side the media taints. The fact that is does in fact taint is what bothers me.
Whoa I missed the trial where this fact was proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Just because an allegation is made doesn’t make it true. The defendant is supposed to have the assumption of innocence until proven otherwise. Isn’t he?
A shame? How about criminal? How can you justify an action that ended in innocent men, women and children dying in a horrible fire. Is it because they were accused by the feds therefore they must be guilty? Ask Randy Weaver about that one. Or is it because they were tried and found guilty by the media? Either case would make the authors point.
Not familiar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute? They are a libertarian organization and they are no friends of Bush or the republicans. They happen to have a healthy distrust of all “big” government and it doesn’t matter which party the government is currently being run by. Yes they share some common goals with conservatives but the differences are just as profound as the similarities.
As most polls / studies show the reporters own personal views are often more liberal on the social agenda then that of the corporations they work for. However just because the New York Times is a huge private enterprise does not mean that they do not have an anti-corporation bias and or agenda to push does it?
October 28th, 2003 at 4:08 pm
I agree that they probably do cover the basics but I think the point of the statement was that no matter what protections are put in place someone determined enough will find a way around it.
Of course. However, that doesn’t mean we have to make it easy for them. We should (and do) try to make it so that they have to be determined. How many more hijackings and bombings would there be if there were no airport security, for example? To discount security efforts as ineffective and wasteful just because somebody sufficiently determined can circumvent those efforts is beyond silly.
In my opinion it doesn’t matter which side the media taints. The fact that is does in fact taint is what bothers me.
Agreed, but I wonder to what extent that can ever truly be avoided. Without the American public demanding more integrity from their news outlets (in the Fox News era? Please!), there’s no way this will ever go away.
Whoa I missed the trial where this fact was proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Just because an allegation is made doesn’t make it true.
I’m not aware of anyone even disputing Koresh’s sexual involvement with young children.
A shame? How about criminal? How can you justify an action that ended in innocent men, women and children dying in a horrible fire.
Whoa I missed the trial where this fact was proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Just because an allegation is made doesn’t make it true. The defendant is supposed to have the assumption of innocence until proven otherwise. Isn’t he? (It applies equally if the FBI is the “defendant.”)
Depending on who you listen to, the FBI intentionally set the fire, or the Branch Davidians actually killed themselves with gunshot wounds to the head. Conspiracy theories abound, but most of the physical evidence seems to point to a botched, though necessary, raid. Criminal in a “reckless endangerment” kind of way? Maybe. Criminal in a “we intentionally executed the dissidents” kind of way? Doubtful.
They are a libertarian organization and they are no friends of Bush or the republicans. They happen to have a healthy distrust of all “big” government and it doesn’t matter which party the government is currently being run by.
Then why target the liberals exclusively? They may claim to hate “big government Republicans,” but they certainly seem to tolerate their actions without complaint, at least in this piece. That’s complicity.
However just because the New York Times is a huge private enterprise does not mean that they do not have an anti-corporation bias and or agenda to push does it?
Individual reporters may have just such a bias, it’s true. But the news organization as a whole, and its parent company, still gets a big say in what finds its way to the printed page. This is why you’re extremely unlikely to find a story critical of GE on NBC, which is owned by GE.
If you wanted a more objective media, rather than whining about individual reporters’ biases, you’d force big corportions to divest themselves of their media holdings, and require TV stations and newspapers to operate as limited entities. Yes, that would be government “interference” in the “free market,” but the “free press” shouldn’t be wholly controlled by big-money corporate interests.
October 28th, 2003 at 4:38 pm
Tom,
I didn’t say i agreed with all of it but calling the media what it is can’t be that bad.
We are taxed a lot. Some of that money is to pay for security. And our security has failed us on several occasions. It is a fair statement.
The kobe case? So, two wrongs make a right?
Oh and all that child molestation occurring in the davidian compound was perfectly legal under TX law at the time.
And big journalism is owned by corporate america but that doesn’t stop idealistic reporters or media outlets not affiliated with other corporations from reporting on big scary corporations.
And the good little capitalist in me says that corporations can own media if they want.
October 29th, 2003 at 1:29 am
I didn’t say i agreed with all of it but calling the media what it is can’t be that bad.
I never meant to imply that you agreed with all of it. But I did assume that you agreed with a lot of it, because otherwise you wouldn’t have posted it without some sort of disclaimer.
I’m not sure what you mean by “calling the media what it is.” The idea that there’s some media conspiracy to grow the government seems farfetched at best, and completely absurd at worst. How the people (voters and elected officials) react to what the media reports is not entirely the media’s fault, unless they’re putting a blatant spin (which, admittedly, they sometimes do — but if John Stossel is any indication, the spin is not always a bigger-government spin).
We are taxed a lot. Some of that money is to pay for security. And our security has failed us on several occasions. It is a fair statement.
All of these things, taken by themselves, are true. But when you put them together, say that we’re heavily taxed specifically to pay for security and then to say that the security doesn’t work because of failures that have occurred is a blatant non-sequitur.
Frankly, to know just how effective the security measures are, you would have to know not just the failures, but also exactly how many successes they had (i.e., how many crimes were thwarted by the security measures). I don’t have that answer, but I doubt the author has it, either.
The kobe case? So, two wrongs make a right?
Not at all. Not even remotely. I was merely being “fair and balanced,” (*grin*) since the author was not — he has a clear and admitted anti-government bias, which explains why he painted the issue as if it’s only the government who abuses the media that way (or that it’s only wrong when the government does it — his feelings are left to our imagination).
I also find supreme irony in writing a piece that rails against the biases of the media while the piece itself is so strongly biased. Speaking of two wrongs not making a right… 😉
Oh and all that child molestation occurring in the davidian compound was perfectly legal under TX law at the time.
I find it extremely difficult to believe that adults having sex with 10-year-old girls was allowable under TX law, but since I don’t have information to the contrary, I’ll have to take your word for it.
And big journalism is owned by corporate america but that doesn’t stop idealistic reporters or media outlets not affiliated with other corporations from reporting on big scary corporations.
Doesn’t stop them from reporting it, no. But it does stop the reports from ever getting much attention. If the big media never picks up on the report, most people never hear about it.
And the good little capitalist in me says that corporations can own media if they want.
And it seems the courts agree with you. But the free press, at least as the founders intended, is a casualty of that arrangement. Which brings me to a larger point: unfettered capitalism and effetive democracy are incompatible ideals. This is because the most important success factor for a democracy is an informed populace, and unfettered capitalism always results in an uninformed populace.
(Look, for example, at how many Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks, or that significant qualities of WMDs have been found in Iraq.)
There are legitimate problems with the media as it currently exists, but they have little to do with some grand scheme to make government bigger. The biggest problem I see is the reluctance of any major media outlet to rock the boat — Fox News notwithstanding, they all pretty much toe the line of whichever party is in power at the time. (Fox News only toes the Republican line.)
All that ranting out of the way, I realize that my pipe dream of a truly unbiased, truly independent, not-for-profit media is exactly that — a pipe dream. So for now I’m left with listening to NPR, the least biased source I’ve yet found, through the filter of the few biases that do sneak in.