State of the Union; State of the Fourth Estate

I just read a Ben Stein article about what he called "the media lynching" of President Bush. Its a great article and you can see it by clicking on Repoman's Favorite Places link to RealClear Politics (it was in the RCP morning edition section for Thurs. 1/25; I'm going to learn how to create links, I promise). But read the article; Stein is a serious but humorous writer and I think he's quite right about the media today.

Here's the link: http://www.americanprowler.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10928

In fact, I have long felt that our current media is failing us badly. The Founding Fathers believed that a free press was vital to democracy because only informed citizens can truly participate in a republic like ours. Unfortunately, our current media is failing badly to perform the crucial role the Founders envisaged.

Locally and nationally, our main media outlets are increasingly agenda-driven, rather than fact-oriented. I am not writing here regarding editorial pages. Any media outlet is entitled to its editorial opinion. I am concerned about the increasing penchant for "commentary" and "analysis" showing up in what purport to be news stories. Most news outlets are not content to give us facts and allow us to reach our own conclusions. Instead we are pushed towards the conclusions that the "forward-thinking" editors, reporters, and headline writers "agree" we "should" reach.

Yesterday, the President gave his State of the Union speech. As any of you who know me understand, I'm a little down on George W. right now. But, frankly, my expectations were exceeded by what I thought was one of his better efforts. I thought he gave an above average explanation of his Iraq policy. Imagine my surprise, however, when the talking heads immediately informed me of what a "weak", "sad", "ineffectual", "defensive", "plaintive", etc., etc., speech it was. After I listened to the pundits for a while, I thought I must have seen a different speech.

Oddly, though, there was almost no analysis of Senator Webb's "Democrat Response" speech. I waited for some adjectives to describe what I thought was a lame, poorly supported, and needlessly confrontational effort from the rudest member of the Senate. None were forthcoming, of course, because, after all, Webb is an opponent of our misguided President. Thus, his opinions are not to be challenged.

I realize that my views on this topic ought to be taken with a grain of salt because I am a partisan. But the tendency to try to persuade rather than inform seems to have taken over the entire media. Give us facts in the news pages and opinions on the editorial page. We are smart enough to decide for ourselves.

A prediction and a concern.

Prediction: This tendency will be the demise of the "old media". As we become less willing to believe the "facts" in the news, we will seek out other sources of information. If the sources are largely biased on way or another, we will be drawn to sources that we agree with because they will seem more "reliable" to us. The Internet will allow us to flash from source to source for fact-finding and support. Newspapers and magazines will more and more seem out of date and out of touch.

Concern: We will all be more susceptible to demagoguery as we rely more heavily on media sources with an agenda we support. Such sources, never having been "independent," will be more likely to be misused by ideologues of the right and left. Mass media such as broadcast television, weekly magazines, and newspapers, help create a sense of a larger community, with shared ideas and values. The new, specialized, narrow-casting media accentuate our differences. The new media will make us more skeptical and unwilling to accept differing viewpoints.

Jefferson and the rest of the Founders cannot be pleased.

UPDATE: 1/27/07
A quick example of my point about the failure to give us the facts.

In yesterday's Rochester (NY) Democrat & Chronicle, there was a cartoon depicting Pres. Bush entering the "Oilman's Saloon" where two "Big Oil" fat cats were having a drink. One of the bloated oilmen said to the other, "Here he comes again with those ears of his". He was referring to ears of corn the President held in his hands.

The cartoon displayed mainstream media views that (1) "Big Oil" is a gouging, bloated industry, squeezing unfair profits out of poor average Joes like us, and (2) corn-based ethanol will reduce our reliance on oil (particularly, middle eastern oil).

Wouldn't it be nice if the media gave us some facts to support such views? How often have we seen any reports pointing out that the government investigations of the big gas price run-up found no evidence of gouging? How about reports showing that the oil industry has a lower profit margin on sales than most major industry groups? What about the fact that more than 50% of the oil we import comes from Canada and Western Hemisphere sources, not the dreaded Middle East?

If we had the opportunity to read all of these stories, we could figure out which of our politicians were serious and which were posturing. As it is, we have only the side of the story the media wants us to get.