Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/02/27

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: RE: [Leica] you will hate me now. (off topic, long) You're WRONG, but I don't hate you (OFF topic - long)
From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 09:47:48 -0500

The News Media.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see, hear, and know, how biased our
news reporting establishment is. Anyone who cannot see that they constantly
take one side of issues, refuse to report issues that are clearly news and
important, and generally speak in a manner that is ambiguous, is either
still in his/her mothers womb, or dead.
- -----------
Hate you Jim? Never. Wonder where you get this paranoid view of the world?
Sure.

While I'm sure you won't believe me - in 10 years at The Washington Post,
covering everything from local courts, to schools, to cops, to feature
writing, to demonstrations, and a lot of health care and medicine, I can
only think of ONE occasion on which there was ANY kind of attempt made to
shape, change, alter, edit, suppress, pump up, ANY story I wrote - for other
than grammatical and/or perfectly reasonable space constraints. That one
story was part of a three-part series I did on abortion. I had watched, from
the doc's elbow, a second trimester abortion, and had written a
minute-by-minute account of what I saw and heard. It was deemed far to
graphic to run, and all the descriptive material was reduced to a single
paragraph. I have no doubt that was done, at least subconsciously, because
what I wrote challenged the "pro-choice" biases of the people who ran the
paper - they also happened to be, and still are, my personal biases.

I can also honestly say that in 13 years at Newsday, the Long Island daily
of which the infamous Bill Moyers was once editor, I NEVER had ANY kind of
attempt made to shape, change, alter, edit, suppress, pump up, ANY story I
wrote - for other than grammatical and/or perfectly reasonable space
constraints.

During that time, all of which I spent covering health, medicine, science,
and the human impact of same, and during which, serving for six years as
Science Editor, working on numerous special projects, I wrote a weekly
nationally syndicated column. That column was horribly politically
incorrect, often ticked off readers, said things that are usually not said
in "polite society," and NO ONE ever told me to change anything.

How is it that those who always see media conspiracies lurking behind every
printing press and t.v. broadcast tower conveniently forget that the vast
majority of owners of these various media are BUSINESS men and women, and,
more often than not, are Republicans, and often conservative Republicans.
Yes, most reporters and editors tend to be "liberal," as do most artists of
any sort - and reporters and editors are, at heart, writer/artists who have
found a way to feed themselves with their artistic skill. But the bosses are
conservatives. And if you don't believe that, look at their records on labor
issues.

You're certainly entitled to your views, and, I must say that I agree with a
lot of what you say about the trashiness of most of what passes for "news"
on t.v. these days. But that trashiness is there for ONE reason only - it
sells advertising. If quality journalism sold advertising, it would be
there. If most Americans would rather watch the modern equivalent of Edward
R. Murrow doing See It Now, than 20/20, 60 Minutes, or Prime Time, believe
me, that's what they'd be seeing on their sets.

Your fight isn't with the media, it's with your fellow citizens. I realize
that killing the messenger has been in vogue since the Trojan wars, but it
has never changed the truth.

B. D.

P.S. I promise this is my first, last and only contribution to this thread.
:-)