The big type war of the yellow kids, 1898
Just a reminder that journalism wasn’t always professional. Well, whether it was ever purely professional could be debated. But William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers really did play a big role in getting the U.S. into the Spanish-American War.
Fast forward to today. Jacob Weisberg writes that Fox News is un-American. By this he seems to mean that Fox’s grotesque partisanship is outside the tradition of American journalism, and that it is bad for America. Regarding the tradition of American journalism — um, there are a lot of traditions. I think in the 20th century journalism really did create some professional standards and more or less upheld them, although that’s all out the window now. But Fox has done a great job of reviving the 19th century standard of yellow journalism for which William Randolph Hearst is remembered.
As for whether this is bad for America — of course it is.
In the October Atlantic, Mark Bowden writes that journalism is collapsing all over. It isn’t just Fox, although Fox played a big role in its collapse. He begins by recalling how all the news cable networks had the same clips of obscure Sonia Sotomayor sound bytes (the “wise Latina” comment and the clip about judges making policy) as soon as Judge Sotomayor was nominated to SCOTUS. “The reporting we saw on TV and on the Internet that day was the work not of journalists, but of political hit men.” He continues,
The snippets about Sotomayor had been circulating on conservative Web sites and shown on some TV channels for weeks. They were new only to the vast majority of us who have better things to do than vet the record of every person on Obama’s list. But this is precisely what activists and bloggers on both sides of the political spectrum do, and what a conservative organization like the Judicial Confirmation Network exists to promote. The JCN had gathered an attack dossier on each of the prospective Supreme Court nominees, and had fed them all to the networks in advance.
This process–political activists supplying material for TV news broadcasts–is not new, of course. It has largely replaced the work of on-the-scene reporters during political campaigns, which have become, in a sense, perpetual. The once-quadrennial clashes between parties over the White House are now simply the way our national business is conducted. In our exhausting 24/7 news cycle, demand for timely information and analysis is greater than ever. With journalists being laid off in droves, savvy political operatives have stepped eagerly into the breach. What’s most troubling is not that TV-news producers mistake their work for journalism, which is bad enough, but that young people drawn to journalism increasingly see no distinction between disinterested reporting and hit-jobbery. The very smart and capable young men … who actually dug up and initially posted the Sotomayor clips both originally described themselves to me as part-time, or aspiring, journalists.
The fact that interests groups churn up propaganda to feed to media isn’t shocking. That’s always been done. What’s disturbing is the degree to which the cable newsies throw the stuff at audiences undigested and unfiltered, without checking to find the context or noting where the obscure clips came from. Fifty years ago, that would have been considered a breach of journalism professional standards. Now, it’s what everybody does.
I’ve written here before about my being a journalism student in college 32 years ago. My Professor, a working editor in upstate NY, was a great teacher, and a very tough mentor. She told me I had a future in journalism (asterisk’s excluded, of course), because I was a good writer, but that it would not be as a “news” reporter, but rather one who wrote entertainment, or something outside of the hard news field. Why? Because I believed people, and I didn’t ask enough tough questions.
Now, those weaknesses are negligable. Today, even with those limitations, I would probably be a Pulitzer Prize winner, because only a handful of “reporters” investigate anymore. They “report.” Anything and everything that crosses their I-Pod or e-mail is now reported.
Here’s the problem: when anything and everything is reported as if it was a fact, how are we, the readers and viewers, supposed to seperate the wheat, let alone the BS that’s used as fertilizer, from the chaff?
I yearn for the days of “Yellow Journalism.” At least you knew where it was coming from. Today’s version should be called “White Journalism.” Not becasue of rascism. When you have no light, no color, all you “see” is black. If you combine ALL colors, you have white . Today’s journalists would make Jackson Pollack cringe; unlike his art work, which featured colors and textures in varying degress and depths, you have artless journalistic monkey’s throwing every nugget of information like a monkey does feces. And the result is that the canvass remains white. No illustration. No depth. No color. No truth. That’s what you get when you throw everything you’ve got at a canvass. It ain’t “Art,” and it sure as Hell ain’t news.
Fox News aka, The Jesus Channel/ GOP TV/ The Glorious Official Republican Government News Network.
While Fox News has the highest ratings, it’s also the same group of people that make up just 20% of America’s electorate… the far right-wing of the GOP.
There will always be an audience for the far right and that’s Rupert Murdock’s Fox News demographic.
Rupert keeps them frothing at the mouth with manufactured fear and GOP talking-points, phony outrage.
Fox is also a right-wing echo chamber.. notice that when “The Wall Street Journalâ€, “The Weekly Standard†people are on Fox News there’s never disclosure that these people are all Rupert Murdock employees.
Imagine if MSNBC or CNN did this… I don’t know how Fox News gets way with constantly recycling Rupert Murdock’s employees (sockpuppets) from his various media properties.
There’s hardly a word on the “MSM†about Murdock’s world wide (far right-wing) media empire.
Murdock has a lot of influence, example: all of his various sockpuppets, Hannity, Beck, etc, and all of Murdock’s worldwide media holdings trash global warming, President Obama and anything else right-wing Rupert Murdock dislikes.
I think that press and especially individual journalists are deathly afraid of Rupert Murdock and what he can do to them professionally.
Rupert Murdock is the new William Randolph Hearst.
Another thing, Sarah Palin, who is a favorite among the Faux News/ Right-wing crowd is getting Rupert Murdock’s wingnut welfare.
Palin’s (Rupert Murdock’s ghostwriter) book publisher is HarperCollins… a wholly owned Rupert Murdock subsidiary, you ‘betcha.
Also, there should be an award given to the guy that writes the ominous, scary music for Fox News… he’s obviously a full-time employee.
No seriously… whenever there’s a special where Rupert Murdock wants to convince Americans that Saddam Hussein has WMD, or that Iran/North Korea is going to attack America tomorrow, or a Hannity or Beck segment where they want to scare their right-wing audience (even more) there’s always that ominous music to go along with the story.
It’s like a scary GOP music video.
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“journalism wasn’t always professional”
I don’t know that even in a stretch you could call what we see on television “news” journalism, it aint even close. The cables especially have all adopted the infotainment / hard copy / entertainment tonight model. They hire good looking pitchmen and women (there are many exceptions but you rarely see any new anchors that look anything like Wolf Blitzer or Candy Krowly), they have a staff of “professional writers” (more like political hatchet men) and the mindless anchors drone on all day long, whatever is on the teleprompter no matter what it says, right or wrong don’t matter. Even the opinion shows are tightly scripted with every opinion carefully prepared. And when there isn’t any news they talk politics all fucking day long, barely pausing for the requisite weather forecast. They all do it, FAUX is just the best at really delivering the exact opposite of news, if FAUX was liberal I’m sure I’d probably watch it, hey I watch Olbermann and Maddow once in a while. I don’t think they can really be considered journalists (although Maddow puts on a great act).
The balloon boy fiasco last week really exposed the cables for what they are. Given an unscripted situation all they did was run the video feed and repeat whatever was said from the local reporters for 3 hours. Not once did any of them ask: Is there really a kid in that thing? Of course there wasn’t, anyone who didn’t sleep through the most basic physics class could see the balloon had no payload (it would have been alot more stable). Then once the worst outcome happened: no kid to either die or be rescued (I think the media would have preferred a crash and burn scenario) what did the cables do? They turned on the pranksters camped out in front of their house for days, god dammit we are going to make this a story no matter what. Balloon boy exposed our “journalists†for what they are: teleprompter reading hacks!
I’m glad to see the Obama administration stand up to FAUX, it’s about time someone did, they have strayed way too far from being “professional journalists”. Unfortunately until the rest of the networks stop reporting the bile that comes out of that “newsroom†FAUX will continue to lead the way in bringing down the news industry.
So, is the rank partisanship over at MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, NBC News, and CBS news un-American? How about the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and untold amounts of liberal newspapers? How about Newsweek itself, along with Time and US News and World Report? We Conservatives have a few small amount of outlets (and, really, do you see MSNBC, CNN, at all giving the same amount of time to Conservatives that Fox News does with Liberals?), and you folks just whine incessantly. Sheesh, lighten up. You folks used to say that free speech was great, and dissent was patriotic. I guess those were just meaningless talking points, eh?
Teach: You don’t get it. “Journalism” is not supposed to be liberal or conservative, just true. You righties don’t give a bleep about what’s true, just what conforms to your ideology, and right-wing media infrastructure has managed to contaminate most of what used to be “news reporting” to give it a right-wing spin in most media outlets. The few exceptions (e.g., Rachel Maddow) stand out because they are exceptions.
Teach, brother, whatever you’re on, please remember that ‘sharing is caring…’ Please become more socialistic, and share your stash!
None of the papers or magazines you mention are even vaguely Liberal. Just ask us Liberals and well tell ya! Cable? Jeez, I can’t count the number of liberals there. In reality, yeah, MSNBC has THE ONLY ONES – Ed, Keith and Rachel. Please let me know when one appears on CNN or FOX. Though I won’t need you to tell me, Teach. It’ll be such a radical departure that I’m sure it’ll be news.
Teach, FOX puts on liberals to make fun of them. Even if they bring in a rational one, the conservatives outnumber him/her by at least a 2, or 3, to 1 ratio. Ever try listening when 4 people are trying to scream at one time – in a 3 to 4 to 1 ration? Cacophony!
Why do you think they put (the strange, at best, looking) “Liberal” Colmes on opposite that brave, handsome Conservative hero, Hannity? To make Colmes an the rest of the left look like ugly-looking, out of touch, stupid losers. Colmes was a failed stand-up comic.
And Teach, ” You folks used to say that free speech was great, and dissent was patriotic. I guess those were just meaningless talking points, eh?” Let’s not even begin to discuss what happened under GWB. To question anyhing was tantamount to treason. If you doubt any of this, please look through the archives of this site. it’ll open your eyes.
Teach, you seem teachable. Read up and come back and discuss things from your perspective. I’d like to hear from you once you get away from the FOX megaphone.
Teach if you think US news and World report is liberal then you must be overdoesing on teabags. It is owned by Mort (Israel first neoconsuperfratboy) Zuckerman hardly a liberal. Get a clue dimwit!
“(and, really, do you see MSNBC, CNN, at all giving the same amount of time to Conservatives that Fox News does with Liberals?)”
You may want to pick up a dictionary I believe the phase et al is what you were going for! et al. – and others (‘et al.’ is used as an abbreviation of `et alii’ (masculine plural) or `et aliae’ (feminine plural) or `et alia’ (neuter plural) when referring to a number of people). I love it when dimwitted teabaggers use that fancy English!
Teach,Let’s say a plane crashed. A good reporter would give details such as weather conditions, the number of passengers, survivors, and usually the country of origin. Our news outlets generally state how many Americans were on board, and typically, if none were, the story is not such a big deal.
I don’t know if this is because Americans are more valuable, or if most just don’t care about foreigners in plane crashes I seriously doubt that a reporter would give a body count regarding the amount of conservatives or liberals, but my guess is that FOX would be the first to start reporting that way.
I can’t imagine Olbermann or Maddow doing such a story, but I can certainly imagine Hannity, Beck or Rush doing it, and cheering about it! There is a certain exceptional frat boy mentality at work in those three guys that defies logic..
Today at the marina, I had an interesting conversation with a righty friend.
His dad recently passed away, and lkeft him a cool sports car. The man said he didn’t feel right about accepting the car because he had worked for everything he had, and it wouldn’t be right to get something for free. He couldn’t see beyond that, even when I said his dad loved him and wanted him to have something to remember him by every day he drove it.
Then the conversation turned to current events and Afghanistan. The same guy says just turn Afghanistan into a slag heap, kill everything there, end of problem.
This same guy has a 17 year old cat that he dotes on and is bummed out that the cat is not doing well. WTF!!!???
He gets his news from FOX.
” Will we get to see the rape rooms?”…
That about sums up right wing journalism for me. A bunch of hacks who degrade a respectable vocation in order to advance their own ideology, or turn cheap literary tricks for a buck.
Google “The Perils of Evangelina” for a good read on how Hearst played with emotions through yellow journalism, and see how the basic elements of his manipulations are still being used by Righties today.
Teach – There is a phrase ‘critical thinking’. It doesn’t mean criticize (as in tear down) the opposition. Critical thinking is an objective skill, that CUND explained quite well. It’s a discipline that’s supposed to keep scientists from fudging the results of research when it’s not convenient – and it’s suposed to be cultivated in journalists. So when they are faced with a mass of biased, misleading, conflicting, and false leaks from biased sources (including left-wing sources) that some objective truth emerge. Barbara has pointed out that ‘objective’ reporting today in all the sources you identified as ‘liberal’ involves repeating the talking points of the left and the right and asking the viewer to decide. Our contention is that some (not all) claims from the right are so blatently false, they should NOT be repeated as news. And the only left-wing spin that should be included is what objectively checks out. I expect that reporting to that standard would change the spin of a lot of hard news significantly to the left.
Your take is that we are trying to spin reporting to the left – but we are only trying to spin everything TRUE – and we think it would take the news to the left.
Opinions are a different issue. Hardcore wingnuts don’t understand there IS a difference between opinions and facts. Everyone’s entitled to editorialize to suit themsleves and/or the owner/publisher. I don’t think Oberman/Madow present any opinion piece as ‘hard’ news. Fox does it 24 hours a day – ALL biased reporting and tries to pass it off as ‘fair and balanced’.
Try to wrap your head around the concept of professional and objective journalism. It has existed in this country – we need it again.
Sheesh, lighten up. You folks used to say that free speech was great, and dissent was patriotic. I guess those were just meaningless talking points, eh?
You need to lighten up. Right wingers have been bitching about the media for a generation or more now. The White House simply points out what everybody, including you, already knows, that Fox News is a Republican operation and you guys go all ape shit.
If it was a Republican White House criticizing the media nobody would even notice because it happens all the time. I hope the Obama administration continues to call Fox News what it is.
How about the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and untold amounts of liberal newspapers?
How about the Orange County Register, the Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Morning News and untold other conservative papers?
Fox News and hate radio in the US really got their start when Uncle Ronnie slotted in a new FCC that killed the Fairness Doctrine. Imagine what it would be like if Fox News gave the usual slanted opinion stuff-as-news, only to confronted with a need to provide equal time; or how they would handle the likes of Beck, or Rove, if they had to offer the same portion of airtime to people espousing opposing viewpoints.
They wouldn’t last a year. Oh, they’d scream and use their airwaves for an assault on the FD, but that’s all. And Murdoch would pull the plug, and invest elsewhere.
That’s exactly why the Repubs were so angry about the FD when Obama took the WH: they wanted to know if he was going to gut them this way. And most obligingly, Obama told them to all carry on with as much of a hate campaign on every issue as they could, 24/7.
News today is just like reality TV shows, shallow, inane tripe that appeals to the baser intincts, which seems to amount to fear mostly. Though I must (regrettably) disagree with you Maha, truth is not what reporters should be talking about since that is entirely subjective, facts that can and ideally have been verified are what should be reported to the public as news.
As for the White House bothering to point out that Fox News is simply an arm of the GOP, this was a mistake since it will only embolden their “talent” and no doubt is seen as a badge of honor amongst their viewers. The White House should have ignored them completely, not given them ammo.
the rank partisanship over at MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, NBC News, and CBS news
BWAH-ha-ha! Right… that’s why BushCo got away with so much for eight years, that “rank partisanship.”
That laughable meme never gets old.
Though I must (regrettably) disagree with you Maha, truth is not what reporters should be talking about since that is entirely subjective, facts that can and ideally have been verified are what should be reported to the public as news.
Silly me, I must disagree. There is something behind every story called “the truth”. It is objective, it is out there, and it isn’t necessarily represented by merely reporting the facts. If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, for example, for stretches of time, he reports the facts. He omits some of them, and the effect is to paint a certain picture in the minds of his listeners. Because he’s careful about what facts he reports and how he presents them, the net effect is far from what most of us would call “the truth”. But, for stretches of time, he is reporting facts, as you suggest.
I think it was Gandhi or somebody who said the truth can be obscured, it can go unrecognized, but it can never be destroyed. This is what journalism must strive to uncover and present. It’s not subjective at all.
The concept of straight Journalism itself is a fraud. Maybe it was a noble experiment in the middle of the century but that’s not how it works. Frankly, I think it was silly to do that anyway. Newspapers in Europe always have a distinct point of view. To pretend otherwise here is wrong.
Basically I think the reduction of yellow journalism was stupid because it was doomed to failure.
Oh, I get it, Maha, and, I agree with you, journalism is not supposed to be partisan. But, the reality is, it is, for better or worse.
Look, if MSNBC wants to run Olberman and Maddow, go for it. Ratings = $$$ (though, doesn’t seem to be working to well for them.) They are opinion, just like O’reailly, Beck, and Hannity (though, I like Hannity better when it was Hannity and Colmes. I like Alan Colmes, enjoy his radio show.)
You folks do not see the bias because it is on your side. The majority leans left, though, because it is not hard edged Progressive, you think it is neutral. We can disagree, but, facts are facts, and, face it, Fox has way more left leaning folks on debating than the other stations have Conservatives on.
With the advent of the new media, all the big boys (and girls) in the MSM have to be more and more outrageous, and they give their opinions within the news more and more. Such is life.
The Washington Post hasn’t been a liberal paper since Fred Hiatt took over. It supported GWB wholeheartedly, printing every wmd lie provided. It is not even a shadow of the great paper it was under Katherine Graham. It is very sad to see such a complete demise of a once great paper.
Teach says: “You folks do not see the bias because it is on your side.”
Show me an example. I say it aint so.
But I will give YOU an example. When Palin made her claim about ‘death panels’ the only thing that happened was the non-FOX reporters gave the fact-check result – either ‘Not-True” or “False” or Pants-on-Fire”. But no one looked at the issue in depth or the degree of deception or delusion nescessary to make that claim.
The section of the health care bill that offended her (and she cited chapter & verse on facebook) referred to a section that allowed payment to doctors who provide end-of-life counseling. The consult is not required for the patient – doctors are not required to offer it. There’s no ‘bounty’ for getting patients to sign a living will. In fact, not only is there no incentive for doctors, theres no government involvement at all. No panel at all. Only the doctor and patient, participation totally voluntary.
That FOX never reported that is normal. But the MSM, which is supposed to be anti-Palin, barely gave 15 seconds coverage to rebutting her ridiculous claim – even though the consequences of her lie have been to inflame the groundless fears of the elderly that the government is out to kill them. So if the MSM is so liberal, why did they give Palin a free pass?
Teach, baby,you need to be taught.
May I respectfully ask what drug you’re on?
Look at the people on the Sunday talk shows: Predominantly Conservative. Even now, when we Democrat’s have majorities in the two houses of Congress and the Presidency. And let’s not even mention the ratio over the last 8 years. It’s a joke, Teach…
I don’t know what channels you’re watching, but the (pretty much) vast majority of talking heads are NOT Liberal.
If you’re watching channels with mostly Liberal opinions, please let the rest of us know. All we can find are Ed, Keith and Rachel on MSNBC. The rest arre ALL fairly, to mostly, Conservative. If you’ve found some secret media stash of your hated Liberals, please let the rest of us know.
We’d like to thank you for it.
Thanks.
Teach, what I’ll never understand is how a desire for objective journalism – however imperfectly realized – is somehow translated as “liberal bias”. I guess Stephen Colbert really was right when he said “reality has a well known liberal bias”. My take is that conservatives can’t stand reality. And so they have to have a “news” media that tells them what they want to hear.
Again, echoing what Maha said – it’s not about left or right bias, it’s about finding the truth. Righties don’t want to hear it, and so they blame anything that confronts them with unwanted truth as “liberal bias” – which is nonsense. This is why these people are fools – they cannot accept what’s right in front of their faces.
With the advent of the new media, all the big boys (and girls) in the MSM have to be more and more outrageous,
No, they don’t. They become outrageous to compensate for their lack of intellect and skill. When was the last time you saw Bill Moyers getting all choked up and then bawling his eyes out about conspiracies that never existed, or shout down a guest with a repetitious and obnoxious meaningless point just to deflect a serious and valid question that he couldn’t answer?… You didn’t! It’s more a case of the wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the grease.
When you don’t have talent or intellect, and nature hasn’t provided you a sufficient foundation from with to build…then you have to rely on gimmickry, or buffoonery, or some outlandish behavior to draw attention…Glenn Beck?, Michele Malkin?, Bill Oh’Really?
One calls Rush Limbaugh a racist and then backs up his statement with 23 quotes, most of which would be judged racist by the vast majority of people. Another calls Obama racist and that he hates white people with no facts behind the statement at all. According to FOX calling Rush a racist is attack journalism and name calling. Calling Obama racist is fair and balanced. How do people swallow this crap? Totally a mystery to me. No one should be allowed to make up their own FACTS. Truth may be hard to discern but facts should not be.
Swami, I think the key question to Teach the Unteachable is, “When was the last time you saw Bill Moyers?”
When one lives in a toilet bowl, one believes the universe is bounded by enamel, and is wet, and occasionally rains poo. Such a mentality sees no world beyond that small smelly bowl, and has the narrow, reality-averse views that Teach spouts here occasionally (I guess to share the rain of poo).
Here’s a good news story…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101903544.html?hpid=topnews
I’m not sure exactly what the news is… All I can gather is that the Obama administration was guilty of shady deal making before they were the Obama administration and had any capacity to even make a deal. Yep, they’re as guilty as sin!
Wow… the competent, liberal WaPo. The entire source of their story is a set of documents from within Bank of America, in which Bank of America execs tell one another that the incoming administration supports their skeezy dealings.
That’s some solid reporting right there. Well, OK, some solid punctuation.
Fox’s “liberals” are who Fox say they are. It from their own casting dept largely that gets these “liberals” who most people have never hearc of.
You think it was a coincidence the Alan Colmes as a liberal was kind of an odd looking fellow compared to hannity ? Not on your life. On the same station that has all of the blondies ? Not on your life.
Fox is a 24/7 right wing echo chamber.
Wingnuts trying to create false comparisons between Maddow/Hannity or whomever are simply inaccurate.
There are no right wing facts versus left wing facts. Only facts
“We can disagree, but, facts are facts, and, face it, Fox has way more left leaning folks on debating than the other stations have Conservatives on.”
Still waiting for a fact. FAUX has more liberals? Name them!