Thursday, December 03, 2009

Legitimate Fears: Government And Media

Many people are making the weakest of cases that FOX News is a threat to the democratic process. I was reading a message board on Facebook earlier and saw a thread started about how the writer was convinced that this is definitely the case.

We can always claim something. But it needs to be supported by sound evidence before we can claim that the debate belongs to any of us -- or our way of thinking. We cannot just claim to be right because we disagree with the content of such writings. We must show why.

The claimer in this case was asked a series of questions by a dissenter, in which the goal was to point out the opposite side of the spectrum. He wanted to show that MSNBC was just as guilty of distributing biased propaganda, but in my mind both are missing the greater point here.

Yesterday, this story was reported by Reuters News Agency.

A top Democratic lawmaker predicted on Wednesday that the government will be involved in shaping the future for struggling U.S. media organizations.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, saying quality journalism was essential to U.S. democracy, said eventually government would have to help resolve the problems caused by a failing business model.


Read the rest of it and by the time you finish it, you should be as concerned about this as anything. Knowing what we know about how the government loves to bailout companies that are "too big to fail", this should be enough to scare you silly.

We know that once the government "loans" any entity money, there are conditions set which are purely designed to punish and manipulate behaviors it deems as maladaptive. GM, AIG, and others have suffered the consequences of allowing the government to rescue them from failure.

It's being sold as the government being stockholders and they are merely exercising stockholders' rights. But make no mistake here, it's still interference and is more of a threat to the democratic process than anything else I can think of right now.


What worries me is thinking about how many of us who may think that the same thing will not happen, if the government is allowed to buy into the media? Do we not think they will try to kill a story they do not want told?

Imagine Pelosi, Schumer, Reid, Murtha, and other corrupt politicians not liking the press they are being given for their thieving, influence peddling ways. Then, just think about how they will have the power and ability to have people fired for it. Those responsible for reporting on their transgressions against the people will not stand a chance, they will be replaced by automatons.

Think about the power that can and will be wielded if this were allowed to happen.


If you are a Democrat and are enamored with this bunch that is in control now, just imagine if this were to carry over to a GOP controlled government. Don't sit their smug and arrogant, because the pendulum can/does swing back harder than you can imagine. Given the severity of the screw-ups your party will very likely not be in power for long, certainly not forever as some would have you to believe.

I don't agree with any one entity, any one party, one ideology, or one candidate. So I want all sides to be heard, regardless of how stupid one side may sound at a given moment. I want Kos to have the same opportunity to be heard as PYY, and others who think more along my lines. I want FOX, MSNBC, and CNN to all be allowed to say what they wish. I want to allow the market to dictate which is telling the truth, not the lying liars who inhabit Washington DC.

As the ignorant masses salivate over the Tiger Woods story, we need to really focus on what is important right now. We need to get rid of the career politicians who think they are above us, and desperately want to increase their power over us.

2 comments:

Chuck said...

I saw this article. The scariest part is that there is not protesting in the streets over it. They very well may sneak this through.

We effectively already have this administration trying to control the media through reward/punishment.

Look at the fight with Fox. They felt Fox was "out to get them" so they restricted access. At the same time there are numerous stories of friendlier news organizations getting better access.

Bush, for all of his faults, did not do this. He never appeared to atttempt to punish the NYT for example for effectively publishing sensitive material. He did not go after the networks for their anti-war activities, and the most obvious one was Dan Rather and CBS for trying to throw the 2004 election.

LA Sunset said...

//The scariest part is that there is not protesting in the streets over it.//

If it had been under the GOP rule, the ACLU, Move ON, and all of the others would have been really out of sorts.

When a Democrat does it, it goes virtually unnoticed. Maybe that's because they try to shove so much down out throats, so fast that we are not aware of it. And that's how it gets through.