Newspapers do not try to keep an eye on all mankind. They have watchers stationed at certain places, like Police Headquarters, the Coroner's Office, the County Clerk's Office, City Hall, the White House, the Senate, House of Representatives, and so forth. They watch, or rather in the majority of cases they belong to associations which employ men who watch a comparatively small number of places where it is made known when the life of anyone ...... departs from ordinary paths or when events worth telling about occur."
Amazing. So in many cases, the journalist is not actually the first to discover. Someone else is getting the news, and the journalists simply regurgitate it. Particularly that which is government focused.
Go ahead, turn on your TV tonight and watch the nightly news. Have you ever noticed how city hall-focused the local coverage is? I mean, it comes in waves depending on the items covered. It might be police HQ-centered, or courthouse-focused, or etc. Even when there is a story of corruption - it's never that big government is bad, no no! It's just that one guy, this one guy, he is the problem. He or she is the corrupt one. The machinery of government is never actually hurtful or coercive no sir. We need more government, in fact.
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Without even knowing it, Lippmann is admitting to a gross, gross conflict of interest here. For the last century, journalists have seen it as their role to "take on" this or that big corporation, but do you see Lippmann saying that reporters are stationed at each big corporation's headquarters? No, of course not, nor should they be. So what is the end result of this?
Journalists know the people at city hall personally. Journalists know the people at the white house personally. Journalists know the people in the Senate, the House of Representatives, etc., etc., etc. Culturally, this is actually quite profound because the converse, the big corporation, becomes an alien. They are the enemy.
So first, not only is government providing news stories on a silver platter to their good friends the journalists(and it's probably not a fully accurate story to begin with; it's probably spun in a pro-government way before being passed off), but secondly, all of the journalists' good friends are in positions of government, and those corporate guys are as alien and evil as their politician friends describe them to be. They're all great friends, they're all yukking it up, at our expense.
It is for this reason, that the journalist pool should be permanently kicked out of the White House and congress, the White House Correspondents Association should be abolished, as should the White House Press Room. All of the above, and similar items, are massive conflicts of interest.
That's not to say that they shouldn't be allowed in. Of course they should be allowed in, provided there is current news to cover. Then, get out.
Currently all they do in there is fester and coalesce and plot and scheme. This is a great example of the very kind of intrigue that the Founders wanted to protect us from. The White House Press Room is a form of intrigue.
http://tinyurl.com/zvlrbde
I would even argue that those famous DC cocktail parties are intrigue and a conflict of interest, but that's 100% personal time on their part.
ReplyDeleteBecause it is quite well known that how the progressive journalists and progressive politicians use these cocktail parties, is as a weapon. Oh, you want to propose a bill that would cut some spending? You're not one of the cool kids. Oh, you want to abolish a department? You're putting Bob over there out of work.
So the uncool kids get laughed out of the party and are not welcome. A blatant conflict of interest. Also, see Alinsky rule #5: Ridicule.
anything to get the media back to the place where they are watchdogs and not government stooges
ReplyDelete