Was surprised today to see in the news, the hacking, paying police, all-rest-of-it that "Fox News" impresario Rupert Murdoch's media corporation has enmeshed itself in. (The more cynical sorts would say, shouldn't be "surprised" ...)
I was writing, Monday the 4th, about other topics, and unintentionally wandered over to a place where I mentioned R. Murdoch. (Thought, later, why am I beating up on him? Didn't even start out to mention him at all...)
Then today, appears he up a -- shall we say, lagoon -- without a paddle.
Oh well. Perhaps has boots.
Those problems are being reported out of England.
Here in America, we need to put back in place the Fairness Doctrine, to recognize a standard that news has to be actually news, and can't be all one-sided, for either side. (Because as I was saying Monday there really aren't liberals and conservatives, it's just meaningless labels for some pols to rally their troops and some of us citizens to try to organize our beliefs around, but we mustn't be fooled. The real issue is the Work To Be Done, not mindless "our guy is better than your guy, you suck" sort of stuff.
Throwing out the Fairness Doctrine was as unfaithful to America's most basic values, and as corrupt, as it would be if they threw out the Constitution.
(I shouldn't even SAY that, that's probably next. Don't want to have to go looking for Fairness Doctrine AND Constitution in that same lagoon, while trying not to be mowed down by Murdoch if he gets people to row for him ....)
-30-
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sign me up for supporting the Fairness Doctrine. While I am in the ideological minority here, what bothers me more than the fact that I am in the minority is that the people in the majority are going on three decades where they simply are not exposed to dissenting opinions. They get zero exposure to thoughts that aren't filtered through the vision of Fox News and rightwing radio. It's not that they believe everything they hear, but that they don't hear anything else and what little they think they know about liberals, Democrats, progressives, etc. is framed by the rightwing media.
ReplyDeleteI occasionally listen to rightwing media to educate myself about what Republicans and Conservatives are thinking. If someone on the other end of the political spectrum wants to do that, it's much harder. The Right has a media monopoly is rural places like this.
You can't go into many public places where a TV isn't showing Fox News. All the local AM stations carry right wing talk exclusively. The ministers freely preach conservative politics from their pulpits.
Yes, the Fairness Doctrine would be a good thing to bring back.