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Diagnosing the Problem. Part 1: The Fourth Estate

Plan for tomorrow using the best information available to you today.

Plans based on good information work pretty good, you know what happens the rest of the time.

So the trick is being able to differentiate good information from garbage.

It is apparent that the leadership of the United States has been less than successful in selecting the best course for the nation over the past several years. Simply put – we suffer the from the results of well intended plans based on bad information. The wrong things have had priority, attempts to solve problems have failed in increasingly expensive terms.

The dollar is now the whipping child of international currencies. Official unemployment is nearing 10%. The United States Health Care system is on the verge of being Nationalized. We are involved in a floundering military operation in Afghanistan. Iran is less then two years away from developing a viable nuclear bomb. A tax on energy is being considered at a time when most people can least afford to give more to Washington.

How did this happen? Where did the bad information come from?

Well, where do we get out information? Who decides what’s important and what isn’t important? Even more importantly, who decides what is true and what isn’t true?

The Press and the Schools.

First, lets look at the Press. Also known as the Fourth Estate.

British politician Edmund Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.

What is the duty of the press? Wikipedia defines the duty of the press and journalists in this way: ‘Secretive power loathes journalists who do their job, who push back screens, peer behind facades, lift rocks. Opprobrium from on high is their badge of honor.’

(Opprobrium ~ Disgrace arising from exceedingly shameful conduct. The purpose of the Fourth Estate is to expose corruption.)

The press is supposed to root out corruption? When was the last time the press had that at the top of their list? Now days the press seems more intent in seeing Liberal Legislation enacted and is willing to turn a blind eye to any inconveniences that would stand in the way and launch scathing attacks against anyone who disagrees.

Some perspective is needed.

Historically the Press in the United States has never been neutral. Newspapers supported political parties and favored candidates. The illusion that the Fourth Estate is a unbiased trumpet of truth is a recent construct.

There have always been shamelessly loyal Democratic Newspapers and Republican Newspapers. Voters understood the favoritism of the local news outlets.

It is very important that people understand there was no golden age of journalism when the truth and only the truth was allowed to be printed. That is a myth.

There is an argument made today by legacy journalists that goes something like this, Have you noticed that over the last several years evidence can be found to support almost any conclusion you would like to draw?

What happened? (wring hands)

Most journalists like to then point to the internet. It used to be difficult to print anything, but now it’s easy.

Yes, the Internet represents a Paradigm shift in information sharing, and it arrived just in the nick of time.

No small amount of journalistic rancor is reserved for Talk Radio and Cable News.

With the advent of the Internet, Talk Radio and Cable News the Press is actually reverting back to a more balanced and healthy form. The ideological oligarchy that came into being after the Second World War is weakening.

Walk with me down memory lane.

In the time after the Second World War journalism was elevated from a profession that was regarded by most as slightly more honorable than circus work to something on par with clerking for a Supreme Court Justice on weekdays and staring in Hollywood on the weekends.

The news organizations learned a great deal from the war and were brim full of people who hit the ground running afterward competing for market share. The potential of Television was quickly realized, and soon TV news personalities became trusted family friends.

By the 1960’s the stage was set, what most people didn’t realize was the news organizations weren’t objective. Gone were the old men who ran the news organizations during the Second World War, the old men who built the trust of the public. What took the place of the pioneers were the graduates of eastern universities of the 1950s and these people wanted to change the world, not just report what was happening.

Looking back at the 1970’s it is laughingly obvious that what we now call the ‘legacy’ media had a Liberal agenda and was wholeheartedly slanting the news to sway public opinion to elect Liberal politicians.

The time before the Internet, Talk Radio and Cable News was a magic time for the ‘legacy’ media in that they set the table and told the people what to eat.

The people trusted the news organizations, and the people who came into power in these organizations during the 1960’s would take full advantage of this trust.

Then the 1980’s happened.

Between the 1960’s and the early 1980’s people didn’t question the ‘news’. Journalists wallowed in self righteousness and sanctimonious. I can remember John Chancelor (NBC Nightly News 1970-82) reading the news with open disdain for Ronald Reagan.

The remarkable thing was that Ronald Reagan was elected, the bias against Reagan in news organizations was awe inspiring. When I hear journalists today lamenting the level of incivility and discourse present in politics I am stunned, the hatred shown for Regan was institutional among new organizations and especially among the news anchors.

Ronald Reagan won election in spite of the news organizations, and fortunately this was the time in my life I became a news junkie. I loved watching the ABC Nightly New and the NBC Nightly New. The bias soon became apparent, even to a preteen with only two available television stations.

While other kids got up on Saturday to watch cartoons I looked forward to Sunday, because that was when Meet The Press came on. Pretty strange. I read Neweek and Time magazines.

I began to notice these news outlets were not neutral sources of information but champions of all things Democrat.

These news organizations were also lazy. If ABC had a story about killer bees coming up from South America than is was a good bet NBC would as well on the very same night. What I was a witness to was also advocacy journalism. News stories were thinly disguised arguments for gun control, or the need for environmental regulation. Homeless people would appear on que to demonstrate the heartlessness of Ronald Reagan’s domestic policies.

The plots were transparent and predictable. Stories explained how selfish Republicans were cutting taxes and people were suffering. Because of Ronald Reagan old people were condemned to eat dog food. Republicans would cause a nuclear war because Ronald Reagan was loose cannon who didn’t understand the intricacies of formal foreign policy.

The list went on and on. Nuclear Winter. Acid Rain. Vanishing Ozone. Dying Oceans. Homeless People. Gun Violence. Industrial Pollution. AIDS. Starving Africa. El Salvidor. Nicaragua.

Advocacy journalism hit the viewer hard in the stomach, and who could argue? The setup was always the same, present an issue in an emotional manner and leave the viewer looking to the Federal Government for a solution.

And if a ‘fact’ was deemed fit to print in the New York Times or divinely uttered by Walter Cronkite that was that. Who would dare challenge John Chancellor or Newsweek?

Luckily technology and legislation has transformed the Journalistic terrain.

The Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987 and Rush Limbaugh soon made his appearance .

Fox News came online in 1996 and is now the number one cable news network.

The Internet now acts, to a large measure, as a Fifth Estate that oversees the Fourth Estate. For example, in 2004 documents which CBS journalist Dan Rather used in story were demonstrated to be fabrications by multiple Internet ‘Blog’ sites. Dan Rather knows what opprobrium tastes like.

According to BBC journalist, Andrew Marr, ‘News is what the consensus of journalists determines it to be.’ That is a dangerous situation when a small number of people can make that determination.

The Diagnosis of the Fourth Estate reveals that an Ideological Oligarchy that came into being after the Second World War. That Ideological Oligarchy is weakening.

We must be vigilant and never allow the Ideological Oligarchy to come back into power through Federal Legislation and Censorship.

(I will address the Educational System in Part II when I get the time)