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acroyearThoughts from Kansas : Disco. Inst. gets insulted again:
The scary thing is that it was Democrats who were pushing for the "fairness doctrine", which (like the Republicans and the real line-item veto) was something they pressed for while in the minority and now will likely ignore now that they're in the majority (just like Republicans insisting they wouldn't filibuster every single thing that goes through the Senate unlike the then minority Democrats, and today are now doing exactly that).
TDP - We Need a Fairness Doctrine For Media:
When strictly emotional appeals get involved (the abortion issue, for example), "facts" become meaningless.
The only sides that want a equal time and a fairness doctrine are the ones in the minority and for whom facts and evidence are against them: if they can limit the time that the evidence is given, their emotional appeals can win out in public opinion.
But when evidence and fact are given all the time they need to present themselves and show the lies and willful bias of the opposition (Kitzmiller), the liars' real agenda, an agenda of political control over YOU and your lives, especially your freedom to be free of their close-minded view of religion, becomes clear.
And furthermore, when did it become a requirement of free speech that every perspective be balanced?One could say the same thing about freedom of the press. While the "equal time" law has its reasons for elections (the idea that candidates win based on their TV ratings, as shown in Max Headroom, is a scary one) , it was relaxed for the right reasons and really only applies to elections, not to every "controversy", manufactured or real. Not every perspective and viewpoint is equal in terms of factual support and adherence to reality. Post-modernism is a poor philosophy.
The scary thing is that it was Democrats who were pushing for the "fairness doctrine", which (like the Republicans and the real line-item veto) was something they pressed for while in the minority and now will likely ignore now that they're in the majority (just like Republicans insisting they wouldn't filibuster every single thing that goes through the Senate unlike the then minority Democrats, and today are now doing exactly that).
TDP - We Need a Fairness Doctrine For Media:
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., says flatly, "It's time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they're in a better position to make a decision."When two opposing viewpoints are presented in this matter, the American public is NOT in a better position. If anything, they are in a higher state of ignorance because the two sides (like, say, creationism vs evolution, or climate change) are NOT EQUAL AND NEVER HAVE BEEN. Forced equal time, already practiced by many young journalists in the classic he-said-she-said (sometimes in their own ignorance, like when one went to get a pro-ID viewpoint and got YECer Ken Ham, who doesn't even like ID because it's not religious enough for his literalism) creates the impression that the issues are 50-50 when they are not. Things get worse when one side is able to lay down single-sentence talking points that are all false but take 30 seconds to say but 5 minutes (to 5 years) to factually show why it is a blatant lie.
When strictly emotional appeals get involved (the abortion issue, for example), "facts" become meaningless.
The only sides that want a equal time and a fairness doctrine are the ones in the minority and for whom facts and evidence are against them: if they can limit the time that the evidence is given, their emotional appeals can win out in public opinion.
But when evidence and fact are given all the time they need to present themselves and show the lies and willful bias of the opposition (Kitzmiller), the liars' real agenda, an agenda of political control over YOU and your lives, especially your freedom to be free of their close-minded view of religion, becomes clear.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-08 07:19 pm (UTC)The problem right now is that the Fox News crowd doesn't get to actually SEE the evidence of creationism vs evolution or climate change or the stats on abstinence only education outside of the echo chamber of Fox News. There is no opposing thought on there. Whether you consider the validity of all ideas or not (and not all ideas are valid, some are just plain bullshit) the only thing FNC viewers get is what Murdoch thinks will make him money.
As a consequence the ONLY way these people will ever see the other end of the spectrum is if it becomes a law that any time they have a douchebag on Fox Denying Climate Change they have a climatologist on as well.
The problem with it is really that the wingnuts have learned how to game the system. So they'll have a simpering waste of flesh like Colmes on to make up the 'liberal' viewpoint and he won't know his ass from a hole in the ground won't be able to talk or debate his way out of a paper bag.
So nothing will really change. But the fact that Fox only presents one side of the news (Rupert's Side) is definitely a problem.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 05:05 pm (UTC)As soon as you put on the books the idea that Congress has the right to tell the press what they MUST say, you turn the idea that the press is merely there to repeat the government's lies from a trend occasionally bucked into the absolute law of the land.
A free press exists because the alternative is worse. Period.
Yes, those who only watch Fox aren't getting the whole story. Neither are those who only watch CNN. CNN, rather than not providing both sides of the controversy, creates the news by cherry-picking the "controversial" stories in the first place.
On the other hand, will those who only watch Fox news even GET the other side even if Fox was forced to present it? It is very easy, as a recent renaissance festival episode of BullShit showed, to spin and quotemine an interview and turn someone's expressions against something into making it seem like they support that idea. It is also very easy to take bits and pieces of the opposing side, present the words absolutely intact, but combined with imagery and visuals that absolutely undermine that side's credibility. Hell, Not the Nine O'Clock News made this work as a parody for a decade, and Colbert is brillaint and going even further, attacking the right by attacking the left and making the left look stupid and then having his reactions make the right look worse.
On the Climate Change thing, all they need is to finish up the scientists side with one scientist/supporting saying "we don't know" and that's it, it's over, the denialists win because they can present the denailists side with absolute certainty and confidence (look at the shit George Will has spat out the last 2 weeks) and even claim to have "fact checked", and then counter with even the slightest uncertainty on the side of evidence and interpretation and we've lost.
They do it this way already.
Giving Fox the requirement to present even more of the things their editorial department refuses to support or believe only increases the opportunity to for them to lie about it. The Right-wing has gotten VERY good at cherry-picking the "facts" of the other side's position to make it look weak, and this would only increase and make it all the more difficult for us to actually get the real story out.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 05:34 pm (UTC)My biggest problem the situation it is that knowledge that five people control the world media and people like Rupert Murdock directly ADMIT to using their 'news' as a means to direct public opinion and yet nothing happens as a result. The echo chamber gets deeper and deeper while the world around us falls apart because people aren't presented with reality they're presented with whatever nonsense X person wants them to see and they're too lazy, stupid or ideologically challenged to look into it themselves.
From the perspective of the First Amendment, yeah the idea of telling the media 'what to say' bugs me. But from the perspective that over the last eight years we wouldn't have invaded Iraq, wouldn't have gotten away with the 'torture is ok when we do it' meme, wouldn't have had a 'i'm not a terrorist so they're not watching me' meme and so forth if it weren't for all the wingnuts voting to keep Bush policies going. Not because they were better policies or because they made us safer or made more sense - but because Rupert Murdock's Newscorp programs (to be fair other stations were doing the same shit because it SOLD) told them it was unpatriotic to do otherwise.
I have a serious problem with that and sitting around waiting for the invisible hand of the market to correct the situation. Despite an over 60% approval rating with what Obama's doing with the country for example - FNC is still attacking him, and his policies. It doesn't matter if they will work or not. They don't even pretend to bring on people who are qualified to comment it's fine to have Karl Rove (traitor) on even though he has neither economics training nor experience. It only matters that he's not a Republican and they support the Republican party. The IHoTM isn't going to fix things. IHoTM never fixes anything really, but especially not when one ideology has rigged the game in their favor. Newscorp has lost $6 billion so far and they're not changing into Liberals R Us any time soon and since Clear Channel and other such organizations are now allowed to own almost ALL media outlets in any given market the only way an opposing view will EVER be heard is if it is forced by law.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 09:51 pm (UTC)1) an unconstitutional violation of freedom of speech and freedom of the press
2) basically unenforceable since it requires filing a complaint and/or lawsuit for the FCC to deal with
2.5) the FCC is the LAST group of government that needs any more unfettered power.
3) can and will increase the ignorance of the population.
that last is all due to "trust" and taking what the government says (or what they think it says) as actually having value. it's the very reason so many religions and religious beliefs (creationism) want that "rubber stamp" of government approval of their beliefs: it helps them to win more converts.
what will happen in the Fox case, should they be forced to give more time to "the opposition", is that they will do exactly what we both described above, "Colmes-ify it". However, because the public will know they're under the law to "present things equally", the public will give more credence to the distortions that Fox will give. knowing Fox is supposed to be more equal by law, they will assume that it IS being more equal (truly "fair and balanced"). This will, in the end, utterly undermine your intent of making this more truly fair.
If you really, REALLY think that having a fairness doctrine in place would have actually prevented Iraq, torture, or any of the other bad things that happened in the last 8 years, you are being EXTREMELY naive.
Fox news didn't get Congress to, as Kerry put it, "give him the keys" to Iraq. And all the letters and emails and phone calls from the constituency wouldn't have stopped Congress. The constituents were demanding that somebody do something, and some SOMETHING had to happen. No amount of press to the reality of Afghanistan or the lack of reality to Iraq was going to change that.
Congress gave it all away, of their own volition (you've said so several times elsewhere over the last 4 years), and Fox news and Rush Limbaugh and Clear Channel had nothing to do with it.
No, the "invisible hand" isn't necessarily going to fix it, because it isn't invisible anymore.
But "Fairness Doctrine" isn't going to fix it either. If anything, to avoid turning EVERYTHING into he-said-she-said, they're just going to ignore more news (because they can't make up a controversy over it) and leave us ALL ignorant.