On his Fox News program yesterday, Bill O'Reilly argued forcefully that "mainstream" news stations, including ABC, CBS and CNN, do not cover news worthy stories that might put the present Administration in a bad light. And he is 100% right. He said something to the effect of "The news media is hurting and not doing its job".
True, but it's worse than that. There is no news media. It is dead, deceased, expired, kaput. ABC, CBS and CNN...and, yes, Fox News, too...are not news stations, they don't air news programs. They are opinion stations, predominantly one opinion stations, presenting a particular view, a biased nonobjective slant, of the Administratin in power and of events. O'Reilly's show itself is loaded with opinionators, like Alan Colmes and Monica Crowley and Dennis Miller and Laure Ingraham and John Stossel, etc. All of whom smilingly spew their predictable harangues absent convincing proof that their views are correct.
Typical support by opinionators for their positios sound like these:
* "Look at what the political party you support did years ago"...the two wrongs do make a right argument
* "Most people don't agree with you"...the old mob rule argument that supported slavery
* "It won't work your way"...the old undefined argument, leaving unanswered what standard is used to rank the betterness of different positions?..and why is that the right standard
* "Your position is not in the Judeo-ChristIAn tradition on which this country was founded"...the old can't you just feel it, baby, argument.
Why the demise of news--objective facts--and the rise of personality-driven subjective opinioN shows? In what conceivable way does it matter to me what Alan Colmes et al think about a particular matter? Do they represent some influential groups in our country? When Stossel says he is a libertarian, does he speak for all libertarians? Or Crowley speak for all conservatives? No, no, no.
News programs give you untainted, uncolored, facts. And now you, the viewer, the listener, must do something to make those cold facts meaningful, relevant, to your life. That doing is called "thinking"...and it is something many of us, unfortunately, are not willing to do, or capable of doing very well. Takes effort. Takes time. Takes knowing how to go about contemplating and evaluating those facts. Few of us are intellectual artists: few of us enjoy drawing our own conclusions.
Most like to be spoon fed ideas. Problem is, most only like to be fed that which they already believe. Though, in the last poll I took, 12 people in the country, more than I thought, had actually once changed their minds after listening to an opinionator.
I guess there is still hope.
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