Jun

15

About a year ago I clicked on 'Al Jazeera America' with the preconception that I'd be treated a glaring example of biased journalism, but instead found their news coverage was presented from a middle-of-the road perspective and clearly not US centric.

Marion Dreyfus writes: 

Al Jazeera acknowledges they no longer hove to the neutrality/journalistic vantage they promised years ago they would. There is a major lawsuit afoot where the failings are bruited–discrimination to non Arabs, women and hirelings, as well as an abdication of following news that is not pro-Arab and involved almost wholly in Arabic and Arabist affairs. It pretends to a journalism it simply does not follow. People of integrity have abandoned them as they noted this falloff.

Stefan Jovanovich writes: 

Much of what passes for today's journalism is, depending on the publisher/broadcaster, disturbingly and unapologetically, skewed one way or the other. I find myself visiting Al Jazeera regularly - so, too, with Russia Today, NPR, and HuffPo. None are particularly congenial to my world views but each provides in its own way, the dialectic missing from those with whom I find favor. Once upon a time it was recommended that for a view from the right one had to check out the Chicago Tribune, for a view from the left, the NYT, and for a straight account with little or no clever manipulation of adjectives or adverbs, the Christian Science Monitor.

Most other news sources still provided enough of an editorial mix to escape being pigeon-holed. Perhaps the worst thing to happen to print journalism (and with a knock-on effect to the other branches) was Woodward-Bernstein. Hailed then (and still now) as journalistic heroes, their work brought about substantial changes in "straight" reporting. College J-grads increasingly aimed for opportunities to break the next big expose - straight reporting became a dull backwater.

It didn't take long for TV to pick-up on the trend (a liberal trend) which went largely unremarked if not un-noticed . Then Limbaugh and others created some pushback with "talk radio" - which didn't go unremarked, but received a considerable amount of flack - from print and TV…with which I had no complaint…at least initially.

However, what was once a battle between rich publishers with conflicting world views, moved from the Op-Ed pages into the rest of the publication and, eventually, it became increasingly difficult to find a "news story" that didn't, in one way or another, skew the narrative into one that reflected the views of either the author and/or publisher - whether that manipulation occurred during the writing of the article or during the editing process has remained a matter of contention. That question is no longer germane as media outlets increasingly hire only those whose views conform to readily identifiable "values" (to be fair, it is an unusual applicant who applies for a position at an organization hostile to his views.)

Unfortunately, this absence of dialectic has spread to the one place where it should be most strongly championed: the university. No better example can be found than the recent pronouncements of Bettina Aptheker (now Professor Aptheker), an admitted "red diaper baby" and one of the notable participants in Mario Salvio's noted "free speech" crusade at Berkeley - an event whose 50th anniversary will be "celebrated" later this year. Unfortunately, though not unexpectedly, Aptheker has had an epiphany. I quote:

"Freedom of speech is a constitutional guarantee, but who gets to exercise it without the chilling restraints of censure depends very much on one's location in the political and social cartography…We [Free Speech movement] veterans … were too young and inexperienced in 1964 to know this, but we do now, and we speak with a new awareness, a new consciousness, and a new urgency that the wisdom of a true freedom is inexorably tied to who exercises power and for what ends."

A growing number of California's public universities have instituted restrictions on free speech. Sic transit gloria mundi.

A final comment. For somewhat different reasons I have a problem with a List issue that came up some time last week. Rocky has regularly challenged the veracity of Zero Hedge's reporting; others throughout the Net have made similar observations. However, as a source regularly referenced by many other commentators/posters, I find it unwise to not keep abreast of their "contributions." However unmeasurable, they do have an impact - one I believe that should be monitored rather than ignored.


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