Fixing the News

NDc4MjM5MTQxMjQ_o_ezra-klein-makes-you-care-about-spanish-bond-yieldsThe media spends almost as much time covering various debates about how to “fix the news” as it does itself and the treatment of Ezra Klein’s announcement that he is leaving the Washington Post to create a political blog for Vox Media (co-founded by the creator of Daily Kos) is a perfect example of the confluence of the two with media covering something that no one outside the media cares about as if it were an important story.

In his announcement, Ezra Klein welcomed resumes from anyone who wanted to join him in “fixing the news” and promised to offer an alternative to a news media that tells people what happened instead of “giving them the crucial contextual information necessary to understand what’s happened.”

More context isn’t the solution to the news; it’s the barrier to the news. Every media outlet wants to tell you what to think about an event, instead of telling you what happened. The more sophisticated organizations do a better job of dressing up their narratives by dropping longreads on the reader. David Kilpatrick’s New York Times Benghazi story was a recent classic of the genre that read like a mystery novel and was filled with selective bits of misleading contextual information leading to inaccurate conclusions.

It did not take very long for a Senate report and other media outlets to shoot down the story which had left out information about the Al Qaeda links of the attackers, but did include a dubious claim that the attackers had been angry about a YouTube video. Kilpatrick’s contextual longread was really a narrative. And that is the problem with context over news.

Context tainted by agendas becomes a narrative. An older generation of liberal journalists dreamed of being Woodward and Bernstein, but the younger generation have more modest ambitions of being storytellers who skip the investigations and go straight to the conclusions.

There are things about the news that actually do need to be fixed and political bias tops the list.

Even though David Kilpatrick’s story was discredited shortly after it was published, Kilpatrick and the New York Times suffered no personal or professional consequences for a story that supported the administration’s line on Benghazi. That is markedly different from what happened to Lara Logan and 60 Minutes for airing a Benghazi report that the administration did not like.

Both stories suffered from errors, but while 60 Minutes was deceived, the New York Times did the deceiving. And yet Lara Logan has been denounced for journalistic malpractice, while hardly anyone in the media has criticized Kilpatrick for attempting to sell blatantly refried nonsense that had long ago been discredited and that not even the administration was willing to stand behind.

It’s equally instructive to compare the treatment of Kilpatrick’s Benghazi hoax to an accurate and thoroughly researched longread in Grandland about Dr. V. the inventor of a golf putter who claimed to be a female physicist from MIT descended from Cornelius Vanderbilt, but turned out to be a male car mechanic. When the fraud was exposed, the man committed suicide. The story was initially admired, only to come under attack from gay rights activists who contended that the reporter, Caleb Hannan, had no right to expose V’s lies.

Hannan’s story wasn’t being challenged based on the facts, instead he had run afoul of a new political mandate that transvestites, transsexuals and assorted ‘trans’ were members of an officially protected victim class whose psyches were too fragile to tolerate the excesses of investigative journalism. It was absurd, but so are most political restrictions. And political restrictions on journalism are the enemy of truth.

The ESPN ombudsman denounced the story for lacking “understanding, empathy and introspection”. Would a story about any other auto mechanic claiming to be a rocket scientist have lead to criticisms that the story lacked understanding and empathy?

“It’s a surprisingly easy editing exercise to remove that aspect of the story,” the ESPN ombudsman suggested, referring to V’s gender. Another ESPN ombudsman and “ethicist” at a journalism school suggested killing the whole story because “the deceptions were inextricably entwined with the name change… in which case, the news organization would then have to ask if the subject of the story itself was so pressing to Grantland’s audience that it had to be published.”

The problem here is not a lack of contextual information, but a political context that entirely overwhelms the facts until ombudsmen and ethicists demand that the political context should determine whether a reporter pursues a story.

It was the identical problem faced by Communists journalists who were expected to think of the political context first and the truth second. And that is the real problem with the news.

The news media now specializes in content so shallow and worthless that it has no political context. Serious news however comes with so much political context that it’s easier to just rewrite Media Matters content than to do any original reporting on a national or international issue. There is safety in numbers because it’s harder to lynch a reporter whose only crime is reworking an AP story that is based on a Media Matters email that is based on a White House press release.

Investigate journalism has become dangerous because it sets the reporter apart from the herd. In the best case scenario, reporters like Sharyl Attkisson are ignored when they report on Fast and Furious or Benghazi; aside from the occasional mysterious computer hack. If they become too annoying to the establishment, like Bob Woodward, they can be torn to shreds for criticizing the wrong people.

The news is broken because it follows the left’s usual model of insider highbrow content and outsider lowbrow content. That same model destroyed art, literature and theater. Now it’s wiping out the news media. The general public gets cat videos, pop stars and stories about a Republican who said something racist. The insiders get pointless analyses accompanied by politically correct spin on the latest trends.

Middlebrow content that is meaningful to the average person is usually the first casualty of postmodern leftist institutional domination. It happened in every area of culture and it just took a little longer for the same phenomenon to kill the news as we knew it and replace it with a wide gap between lowbrow indoctrination and highbrow guides on how to indoctrinate.

This split is fundamental to understanding what is going on not only with the news media, but with the country. The national audience is being divided between those who are to be fooled and those who do the fooling. The “smart people” distribute talking points from the think tanks and everyone else gets cat videos, pop stars and the latest Republican outrage boiled down to the level of the Huffington Post audience.

The news media has become just another outlet in the culture war of the left. Its business model can’t be fixed because it isn’t in business to make money, but to indoctrinate. It doesn’t care about the financial bottom line, but about the political bottom line. Its future is boutique journalism funded by liberal billionaires looking to influence policy by subsidizing failed media outlets that would otherwise go on the block for a buck just like Newsweek.

The news doesn’t need to be fixed. It needs to be freed.

*

Don’t miss Ann-Marie Murrell‘s video interview with Daniel Greenfield on Robert Gates’ Revelations Confirm Horowitz’s “Party of Defeat,” Abandoning Iraq, How Americans Died For a War Obama Didn’t Believe In, The Release of Terrorist Lawyer Lynne Stewart, and much, much more:

Part I:

Part II:

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  • Johnnnyboy

    I do not agree with every particular, but otherwise I am impressed. A great write up.

    What I find most irritation are those who just can not get it into there heads that they are being deliberately misled. When they note that something is misleading they end up putting it into the mistake category.

    Along with rich people who use tax free funds to promote policies that will cause other people to be taxed more, we have a problem with how journalists are produced. Our modern, what are alleged to be liberal arts colleges, are closer to being seminaries in that they promote moral doctrines that are treated as absolutes because they can not really be subject to debate. Those who dare to disagree are not reasoned with but punished, first with slander, followed by shunning and eventual expulsion should they fail to change their ways.

    • semus

      They’re made into non persons, it’s a process.

      • laura r

        maybe they were non persons to begin with?

    • kikorikid

      There is one step beyond expulsion, the Left will get to it soon.
      It will be then that we find out if the 2nd Amendment works.

  • semus

    Thanks again, keep writing.

  • AlexanderGofen

    Fixing the News? The news media isn’t broken but biased? Merely biased? The news media is TOTALITARIAN! Totalitarian no less than in the former USSR, including the Front page and this very article, failing to report or even touch the greatest crime of the grotesque proportion: The illegitimacy and thievery of the foreign impostor Obama-Soetoro-Soebarkach-Bounel. You are miserable hypocrites, Front page and Mr. Greenfield, writing about “Fixing the News” with such a straight face.

    http://www.resonoelusono.com/Infamy.htm

    http://www.resonoelusono.com/2008vs1917.htm

  • DogmaelJones1

    I taught myself a long time ago to read between the lines of “straight” news stories in the New York Times and other newspapers, and then to research the subject or topic myself if I had the time to spare. And one reads between the lines when one suspects that one is not getting all the facts and that what one reads in a story is a filtered, non-objective patina of an event, heavily slanted by the writer and conforming with a newspaper’s editorial policy. Fortunately, today, one can resort to the Internet to “fact check” any newspaper’s story.

    • truebearing

      “Fortunately, today, one can resort to the Internet to “fact check” any newspaper’s story.”

      Yes, for now, but the Left knows it is losing the battle of the internet. As the last bastion of free speech, the Left is working feverishly to impose “hate speech” laws, which is their anti-dote to free speech.

      • DogmaelJones1

        Then the left is going to have to send its SWAT teams directly to my door. I’m nearly finished writing a novel that will make Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” look like Valentine’s Day greeting.

  • A Z

    If you tell people what happened day after day without omitting, shading or otherwise editing the news, people will already have the proper context.

  • Algiers50

    One example: recall that the Times apparently didn’t like the way the Duke lacrosse story was heading (ie, towards showing the accused players were innocent), and so it switched reporters and doubled-down on supporting Nifong.

    Perhaps the editors felt that the endorsing a PC narrative–about a working woman of color allegedly abused by children of the rich–was more important and useful to society, even if it wasn’t true, than the actual facts.

    One wonders then about other Times stories–about Sharon and Shatila; about
    almost anything to do with Israel–or even, going back into a few geologic ages, the work of Duranty. How much of what the Times prints has been news, and how much just social conditioning and support of specific viewpoints?

    • edlancey

      No need for a hypothetical, look no further than the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_al-Durrah_incident farrago of lies.

    • itaintmojo

      And how NBC edited the conversation between Zimmerman and the police, to hang Zimmerman as a racist profiler.

      • laura r

        he sued & he won. justice was served.

  • Hawkeye3939

    We expected the Völkischer Beobachter to parrot Hitler’s lies, and Pravda/Izvestia were official organs of Stalin’s Soviet Union, but when so-called “objective” news media voluntarily become the mouthpiece for a corrupt and inept regime, it’s time for another look at the fourth estate. Surely every president has had his opponents among the various media, just as each has enjoyed favorable coverage from others, but the blatant bias of the vast bulk of the American news media are comfortably in bed with a man whose administration is responsible for untold damage to the national fabric. The bias isn’t even clever, nor do they take any steps to camouflage their prejudices–it’s in-your-face lies from morning to night. There may come a time in our history when reporters realize their error and a new day will dawn where newspapers and television will once again contain objective NEWS leaving the reader/viewer to decipher and analyze. Being spoon-fed warmed-over Marxist theory is a most unpleasant experience.

    • loneryder

      Maybe it will happen like in Cuba. The media was all for Castro. Then when he came into power, he took control of the media and threw a lot of them in jail. They cried wait a minute, we helped you get in office, you can’t do this. Stalin called them “useful idiots”. There are a lot of “useful idiots” today. Does anyone think the American Sheeple will ever stop believing the US media??

  • richarddonna

    CBS PROMOTED A FORGED DOCUMENT AS THE TRUTH IN ORDER TO DEFEAT A REPUBLICAN..THEN DAN RATHER SAID IT DID NOT MATTER THAT IT WAS A FORGERY…THIS IS THE MINDSET OF EVERYONE WHO WORKS AT CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, MSNBC, MEDIA MATTERS, HUFF POST ETC.

    • hrwolfe

      Walter Cronkite took a military victory and presented it as a defeat, used CBS resources to help produce anti-war rallies and 58,000 Americans died in vain, now Iraq gets the same shrift, see a pattern anywhere?

      • richarddonna

        America has produced one great reporter in the last 100 years, Ernie Pyle, and the only network he would work for today is FOX. He understood what our soldiers were fighting and dying for..
        And he understood that the US CONSTITUTION is not a suicide pact…something no one at CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, MEDIA MATTERS, HUFF POST, etc. understands.

      • blert

        You do realize that Cronkite made his bones by leaking the news about Operation Torch before the US Army wanted it public?

        Before that he was an absolute no-body.

        • hrwolfe

          Did anyone ever check HIS citizenship papers? I mean just who’s side was he on anyway? Oh yea that’s right he’s an American Icon.

    • Donotask

      TV and the media is in one of it’s most corrupt phases, at least that I have seen in my lifetime. They will rewrite historical fact, say or promote anything to push PC propaganda or political agendas. I got rid of cable 2 years ago because of this, and now my family “chooses” what to feed their mind through the tube! So strange to live in the US when it no longer feels like the US anymore. True democracy is long dead.

  • Biff_Maliboo

    Why not just call it Journolist 2.0?

    http://dailycaller.com/search/?q=journolist

  • hrwolfe

    Really, just look at the recent Grammy’s, now that was a production everybody could love, not. I do not watch, I lost luster for stars sooooooooo long ago but put on a production so low brow isn’t even funny. To push for Gay marriage then get it then hold a mass wedding production basically mocking the institution one must ask “what was the point in the first place other than to destroy the institution?”

    • laura r

      the point was titilation, public curiosity, a freakshow circus pony act. bottom line $$.

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  • BagLady

    Hence the rise of the blogger who tells it how it is at ground level.

    • Bamaguje

      Indeed, the internet is a huge spanner in the works of lamestream media propaganda.
      They may enjoy near monopoly in the broadcast and print media, but not on the worldwide web.

      • BagLady

        What is scary is to follow a good blogger in a war zone and then he vanishes without trace.

  • johnlittle

    If one wants to know why we have a public that is controlled by “contextual” news reporting, read Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart,” page 70, entry regarding the importance of educational and cognitive homogamy on human behavior. Then, go figure.

    Cordially, John Little, Sr.

  • itaintmojo

    MSM Anchors show hostility towards conservatives that won’t be apparent when they interview Liberals. Anchors with an agenda, like Anderson Cooper can barely hide their fiery disdain for any conservative point of view. Republicans should not just allow this to slide with out a mention. The other night both Cruz and Paul, had interviewers who would respond in ways to what they were saying, as to make them look like they were not being fully honest. Subtly argumentative. I doubt highly that O’Liar will be treated this way tomorrow morning for his exclusive. Its as if the MSM is a political arm of the left. What a disgusting brainwashing shame it is for Americans. Conservatives ought to be collecting, and documenting the daily media bias, and its leaders speaking out against flagrant media bias. If biased reporters are exposed and called out, then perhaps some of them will think twice before being blatantly unfair.

  • verneoz

    This article was excellent in capturing what is wrong with US journalism. I would enjoy seeing David Horowitz and the Media Research Center address the faculty at the Columbia School of Journalism to discuss this article. A debate with the faculty would be great also.

  • Reggie Dunlop

    Blaming the media: opiate of the conversatives.

    • Rob Hobart

      Trolling conservatives: opiate of Lefties.

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      After 5 Obama years – still blaming Bush – reflex of leftards.

      Defending islamofascists – reflex of leftards.

  • wileyvet

    I know that the lefty bias has been in place a long time, but what cinched it for me was the coverage of your 2004 Presidential election. Not just the bias, but the vitriol. When John O’Neill and the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth published their book, the MSM did all they could to discredit more than 200 real heroes in an effort to defend that fraud, traitor and charlatan the libs ran as a candidate. Remember ” I’m John Kerry reporting for duty ” as he gave his pathetic salute?

  • Anukem Jihadi

    “Now they will know why they are afraid of the dark. Now they will learn why they fear the night.”

  • blert

    Actually, Newsweak was NOT sold for a dollar. The plutocrats had to EAT the debts of the institution, too. The BIG number was the unfunded pension liability.

    It was astronomic, something like $65,000,000. Being a defined benefits plan, (old school, style) the actual liability figures to be even larger.

    (When the plutocrats REALLY looked over those stats they freaked out, knowing that even $65,000,000 grossly understated their liability. The figure was back-derived by assuming that such a figure, reasonably invested, would cover the collective annuity that the pension fund stood liable for. The reasonably invested ROI was an absurd number, no doubt. (Try 8%?) When re-calculated down to 4% the figures explode.)

    You’ll note that other media properties are looking for a sucker/ plutocrat.

    Bezos may end up writing a tell-much kind of like Jesse Livermore — after having blown his entire wad — when Amazon dot com hits its air pocket.

    (Sales taxes and strung out consumers will be the death of Amazon.)

  • blert

    It’s not hard to notice that a higher agency is pre-screening disqus commentary so as to maintain PC vigilence.

    Am I the only one to note this?

    • SoldierBill

      I certainly noticed. My bet is that L. Ron Hubbard is censoring us all in the name of Xenu.

    • laura r

      youre projecting. disques does not moderate @ all. its up to the indivual site. i corresponded w/disques about getting someone banned, & that was what they told me. it was frontpage who deleted his comments, & finally now he’s history. disque couldnt care less what is written on forums. they handle 2 1/2 million websites.

      • veeper

        I don’t think you read blert’s comment correctly…..

    • Hass

      Agreed, I cop comment pending approval here and there. I don’t use foul language either. And the stupidity is most of them never get approved.

    • Johnnnyboy

      The screening is not that thorough, but I am sometimes surprised at what gets kicked out. Maybe they have volunteer screeners who vary one to the next?

  • truebearing

    ‘Context”…nice euphemism for spin, or propaganda. When someone intends to tell the truth, they offer facts. When someone is trying to get out of trouble, or con someone, they create a “context.” It is simply a mechanism for deceit and has no place in journalism, but then again, the Left never had any use for true journalism to begin with.

  • veeper

    The news was biased 30-40 years ago……

    Now, it’s propaganda……

  • herb benty

    Canada has it’s own “Pravda”, a state-funded “news outlet”, the CBC.

  • AlexanderGofen

    It is judicially unknown so far whose son (of b.) that white house resident is. However the mere fact that he was allowed to campaign based on what he CLAIMED in his bio IS ALREADY BETRAYAL of the constitution! Moreover, he is an identity thief, fraud producing forged docs, not to mention the recent suspicious death of Loretta Fuddy. Yet the news media (including this Front page and this author of this very article!) COOPERATE AND COVER UP for the thief and impostor: during all these ugly 5 years.

  • randy harrison

    Most the media today would have fallen right in line with Goebbels. They now have Vallerie Jarret instead.