The Bill Moyers Defecit

And those of us for whom the old school journalists like Moyars are but a fuzzy memory from their waning years, or not a memory at all, why, there’s a certain Plato’s Cave to it all in the new cacophonous media-crity, numbed by all the “Breaking News”.

Adlib, among your many good observations, I think the one that bothers me the most is the concept of “if we have a person from both sides of an issue, then there is a middle answer and we were ‘fair.'”

What? They have a mother of an AA wife/mother of a husband whose husband/son was lynched vs. a KKK member and there is some “middle ground” on “OK, we should have only flogged him” and that is where civil rights are found? The middle ground is satisfied?
Not just civil rights, but voting rights, womens reproductive rights, climate change, health care… the list goes on.

My intelligence (what little I may have) is insulted with having a bigot as a ‘balance’ on and calling it fair and washing their hands.

Another point that has bothered me, that with the advent of so much corporatism and consolidating of media, not only have the investigation reports and reporters been “found early retirement” but so have many of the senior editors. The loss of “institutional knowledge”, they cost too much. So much easier to hire a tech smart younger person (no dedicated pension) than the older person that actually knows some background from more the 15 minutes ago.

Ha, the “middle ground”!

AP’s “Fact Check” Distorts the Fundamentals of a Republican Plan to Reshape Medicare.

And how many “news” organizations ran with the AP story without fact-checking? Plenty, ya betcha.

Bill Moyers was an ethical and thoughtful journalist to be sure. But he also had immense talent that I think is sometimes overlooked. I’ve always been struck by his uncanny and intuitive knack of penetrating to the important parts of a topic.

That can be a learned skill, but is also owed much to talent.

Ad, a wonderful article about a great man.

Great post AdLib. Mr. Moyers mentioned Susan Jacoby in the second video of Stewart’s interview. I found this and offer it, because it is just what Moyers was talking about;

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02152008/profile.html

Adlib, thanks for another outstanding and motivating post! I have tried to think of what we can do to keep our press unbiased and to force it to do the job the Founders understood was essential to maintain democracy. There is no magic bullet, of course, and there are no easy answers. But it seems to me it boils down to we citizens demanding it—as does every other issue we see in this country that makes us upset. It’s really a truth that many of us don’t want to hear: we are the change we are waiting for. It takes constant and relentless scrutiny. That’s why it’s so hard—people must get involved and few want to be bothered. Hey, I don’t want to be bothered either! I have other stuff I’d rather do. But I also like living in a free country, where I can play a part on my own destiny. I like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. I like reproductive choice. I like good schools. I like clean air, water and national parks. I like the ocean. Personally, I like endangered species too. If I don’t have a responsible press, I won’t get those things. And it’s a vicious cycle; without a free and honest press, there will be poorer education which in turn will allow the corporate press to triumph which will further erode all the things I like about America.

Since more and more people are disengaged from participating in government or in ensuring that we prevent a plutocracy, the burden falls on those of us who are engaged. The other side has their partisans and we have ours. The other side has the power of money, but we have the power of numbers. The rest of the population will live their lives based on which side wins. It’s pretty much as reductionist as that as I see it now. We have already lost so much ground re: the press, but I honestly don’t think it is in any way irreversible. The new media is making a dent. There are new muckrackers, bless them. But if we want more Bill Moyers’ and if we want a respectable press, we have to insist—repeatedly. That’s the key—speak out each and every time we see bias or piss-poor reporting. Over and over again. Here’s a good start:

Join the Action Alert Network
FAIR’s Action Alert network is a powerful activism tool that encourages the public to become critically engaged with media. FAIR distributes timely, focused reports via email, critiquing a particular instance of media inaccuracy or bias, and encourages members to communicate directly to journalists to demand more responsible reporting.
This activism get results – we’ve forced rewrites of stories, propelled undercovered stories from the sidelines to the mainstream and succeeded in getting different perspectives into the news.
It’s easy to sign up – just enter your name and email address in the sign up box on this page. We keep our list low volume – generally only one or two emails per week.
Get involved in the FAIR fight for better media coverage – sign up today.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=6

Activism Resources
FAIR’s Media Contact List: Contact national media and make your voice heard!

FAIR’s Media Activism Kit: A step-by-step guide to getting involved in media activism, from letter-writing to organizing a demonstration. Includes an essential resource list.

Media Activism Groups: Find out what’s going on around the country and in your area.

Online News Sources: Where to keep up with the news

Challenging Hate Radio: A Guide For Activists. Some tips on documenting hate speech, and what activists can do about it.

I can tell you that when I have written to the media, I don’t always get a reply, but I sometimes do. More importantly, I have SEEN that when enough people write, networks act accordingly. The last time was when there were zero Dems scheduled on Meet the Press. People complained and they hurriedly changed their line-up. There were more example recently, but they escape me at the moment. It still works and we need to stay vigilant to make sure it always will. (But I know I am preachin’ to the choir here! Who knows though, someone unknown might be lurking.)

Journalism has, most of the time, been very political. There were, and remain, a few newspapers/news journals that tried to be impartial. But, those publications have been in the minority.

The political parties have used the press to make their point; and, at one time, the parties or president have had their own newspapers.

So, the politcal naure of the media is nothing new. The fairness doctrine worked against that, but that is gone now.

Adlib, yes I did see Moyers interview Howard Zinn.

From Wikipedia:

On June 4, 2003, Moyers gave an “inspiring” speech at the “Take Back America” conference. In it, Moyers defined what he considered to be Karl Rove’s influence on George W. Bush’s administration. Moyers asserted that, from his reading of Rove, the mid-to-late 19th century were to Rove a “cherished period of American history.” He further stated, “From his own public comments and my reading of the record, it is apparent that Karl Rove has modeled the Bush presidency on that of William McKinley…and modeled himself on Mark Hanna, the man who virtually manufactured McKinley”, a man whose primary “passion” was attending to corporate and imperial power.

Furthermore, Moyers indicated that Hanna gathered support for McKinley’s presidential campaign from “the corporate interests of the day” and was responsible for Ohio and Washington coming under the rule of “bankers, railroads and public utility corporations.” He submitted that political opponents of this transfer of power were “smeared as disturbers of the peace, socialists, anarchists, or worse.”
Moyers also referred to what historian Clinton Rossiter called the period of “the great train robbery of American intellectual history,” when “conservatives—or better, pro-corporate apologists” began using terms such as “progress”, “opportunity”, and “individualism” in order to make “the plunder of America sound like divine right.” He added that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was also used by conservative politicians, judges, and publicists to justify the idea of a “natural order of things” as well as “the notion that progress resulted from the elimination of the weak and the ‘survival of the fittest.'”

He concludes, “This ‘degenerate and unlovely age’, as one historian calls it, exists in the mind of Karl Rove, the reputed brain of George W. Bush, as the seminal age of inspiration for the politics and governance of America today.”

I gotta say, he pretty much nailed it. That’s the kind of analysis backed by history and study that you just don’t get now a days. Lots of “left leaning” journalists attacked Bush but very few of them put it in perspective like Moyers does.

Perhaps this explains why the political satire on Saturday Night Live isn’t funny anymore and hasn’t been for years.
Currently spinning in their graves: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and George Orwell

AdLib, much has been lost in journalism and most likely will not be found. But, journalism has always been a tool for those in power or seeking power. By no means do I wish to challenge you, certainly I would lose, but I must make a statement in regard to Mr. Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson was a brilliant man but he was a man seeking power and desire for his opinions to be just. I know he was one of our founders and he has been raised to heights of goddly. But, he was a man with faults, too. He used journalism and the press for his own purpose just as it is used today. Of course, he did not have the volume of it as we have now. There is a wonderful book titled “A Magnificent Catastrophe” written by Edward J. Larson about the election of 1800 which gave birth to our now two party system and etched the lines of partisanship we live with today. Of course this was the contest between two of our founders, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. If you read this book, you will see that nothing really has changed in politics. It took off in a run that even our founders couldn’t control. (In fact, in reading it I caught myself laughing at the similarities of some of the methods used today and even the topics. Especially the use of religion.) Jefferson played the game and he played it well. I do not mean to take away from your article, AdLib, but I do feel that there always need to be someone to say, “Our Founding Fathers were on the right track but they were men and didn’t always know the way down the road.” We need to study them and learn the truth of their desires for our nation. Even the desires that they themselves couldn’t follow when lost in their desires for power.

Thanks, Adlib,

If you haven’t, you might try to catch or upload Moyer’s talk on Alternative Radio (this week EDT) honouring Howard Zinn. It was brilliant, and it took my breath away. I was in the car, and even after I arrived at my destination, I sat still to hear his conclusion(s).

He spoke candidly and directly to the fragility of the democracy.

One of the few, left, who is/was a journalist.

And Adlib, my deep apology I wanted to rate this 10, but hit five by mistake.